I  16 

3R.  WARFIELD'S   EXHAUSTIVE  STUDY  OF  "JOHN   HUMPHREY  NOYES 

AND    HIS    BIBLE    COMMUNISTS"   WILL    BE   CONTINUED 

THROUGH  THE  YEAR. 


Vol.  LXXVIII  JANUARY,   1921  No.  309 


BIBLIOTHECA   SACRA 

Ninety-First  Year 

EDITOR 

G.  FREDERICK  WRIGHT 

ASSOCIATED   WITH 

JAMES   LINDSAY,  CHARLES  F.    THWING,  A.    A.    BERLE,    WILLIAM    E.    BARTON 

HENRY  A.  STIMSON,  HERBERT  W.    MAGOUN,  AZARIAH    S.   ROOT 

MELVIN  G.  KYLE,  W.  H.  GRIFFITH  THOMAS,  GEORGE 

E.   HALL,  L.  FRANKLIN  GRUBER 


'he  War  and  the  Samaritan  Colony         .         .         William  E.  Barton  1 

The  Westcott  and  Hort  Text  Under  Fire     .     William  Wallace  Everts  23 

ohn  Humphrey  Notes  and  his  "  Bible  Communists  " 

Benjamin  B.  Warfield  37 

he  Law  of  Change  in  the  Bible         .         .         .         Harold  M.  Wiener  73 

ritical  Note — 

Dr.  Kyle's  "  The  Problem  of  the  Pentateuch  "     .     Leander  8.  Keyser  103 

otices  op  Recent  Publications     ........  110 


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JANUARY,  1919 
"Die  Heiligungsbewegung."    Benjamin  B.  Warfield 
The  Greek  Genesis,  the  Graf-Wellhausen  Theory,  and  the  Conservative 

Position.    Harold  M.  Wiener 
The  "  Split  Infinitive  "  and  other  Idioms.    Herbert  William  Magoun 
German  Moral  Abnormality.    W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 
Christian  Monasticism  and  Its  Place  in  History.    Ian  C.  Hannah 
Critical  Notes  and  Notices  of  Recent  Publications 

APRIL,  1919 

The  Need  of  a  New  Conception  of  God.    Andrew  Gillies 

Sin  in  the  Light  of  To-day.    Olive  M.  Winchester 

The  German  Attitude  to  the  Bible.    W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 

Priest  —  Priesthood.    William  H.  Bates 

Contributions  to  a  New  Theory  of  the  Composition  of  the  Pentateuch 

(III.).    Harold  M.  Wiener 
Jehovah.    Joseph  D.  Wilson 
Critical  Notes  and  Notices  of  Recent  Publications 

JULY,  1919 

The  Victorious  Life  (I.).    W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 

The  Fundamental  Difference  Between  Pre-  and  Post-Millenarians.    Da- 
vid A.  McClenahan 
The  Mission  of  the  Church.    Newton  Wray 
The  Religion  of  Moses.    Harold  M.  Wiener 
Critical  Notes  and  Notices  of  Recent  Publications 

OCTOBER,  1919 
The  Creative  Days.    L.  Franklin  Gruber 
The  Divine  Transcendence.    David  Foster  Estes 
The  Philosophy  of  Prohibition.    Charles  W.  Super 
The  Victorious  Life  (II.).    W.  H.  Griffith  Thomas 
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JOHN    HUMPHREY    NOYES    AND    HIS 
"BIBLE    COMMUNISTS" 

PROFESSOR  BENJAMIN   B.    WARFIELD,   D.DV   LL.D.,   LITT.D. 
PRINCETON,    NEW    JERSEY 

I.      THE    ENVIRONMENT 

Few  things  are  more  noticeable,  among  the  advocates  of 
perfectionism  from  the  opening  of  the  second  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  than  their  extreme  reluctance  to  accept 
the  name  of  "  Perfectionists. "  Many  things  may  no  doubt 
have  cooperated  to  produce  this  attitude.  Its  main  oc- 
casion lay,  however,  in  the  association  of  the  name  with 
a  particular  body  of  perfectionists,  then  claiming  the  at- 
tention of  the  public,  with  which  other  perfectionists  were 
very  loath  to  be  confused.  How  anxious  they  were  not 
-to  be  confused  with  this  body  may  be  measured  by  the 
vigor  of  the  language  in  which,  themselves  perfectionists, 
they  repudiate  all  connection  with  "  Perfectionists."  Asa 
Mahan,  for  example,  writing  at  the  beginning  of  this  pe- 
riod,1 in  temperately  declares  that  the  doctrine  he  teaches 
"  has  absolutely  nothing  in  common  "  with  "  Perfection- 
ism," "  but  a  few  terms  drawn  from  the  Bible."  In  order 
to  distinguish  his  doctrine  from  "  Perfectionism,"  however, 
he  requires  to  describe  the  rejected  doctrine  as  "  Perfection- 
ism technically  so  called,"  a  mode  of  speech  which  already 
suggests  that  perfectionism,  plainly  understood,  is  —  as 
it  really  is  —  common  ground  between  the  two.  Possibly 
to  atone  for  this  necessary  confession  of  general  kinship, 
he  sweepingly  declares  that  "  Perfectionism  technically  so 
called,"  is,  in  his  judgment,  "  in  the  nature  and  necessary 
tendencies  of  its  principles,  worse  than  the  worst  form  of 
infidelity."  To  William  E.  Boardman,  writing  twenty 
years  later,2  the  clanger  of  confusion  with  this  "  Perfection- 
ism "  seems  less,  imminent,  and  he  is  therefore  able  to 
speak  of  it  with  less  passion.  He  is  not  the  less  de- 
termined, however,  to  separate  himself  decisively  from  it. 


38  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

This,  it  must  be  confessed,  he  does  not  accomplish,  in  every 
respect,  without  some  apparent  difficulty  —  describing  its 
fundamental  mystical  doctrine  of  the  indwelling  Christ  in 
terms  which  would  not  serve  badly  to  describe  the  doc- 
trine to  which  he  himself  ultimately  came.  It  is,  in  point 
of  fact,  not  the  perfectionism  of  the  rejected  "Perfection- 
ism "  which  offends  him,  any  more  than  Mahan,  but  its 
antinomianism.  And  his  real  concern  is  to  protest  that 
not  all  perfectionism,  —  not  his  own  variety,  for  example, 
—  is  chargeable  with  the  antinomianism  which  men  had 
been  led  to  associate  with  the  name  through  experience 
with  the  body  of  religionists  who  had  arrogated  to  them- 
selves, and  had  had  accorded  to  them  by  common  usage, 
the  specific  name  of  "  Perfectionists. "  How  firmly  this 
special  body  of  perfectionists  had  attached  the  general  de- 
scriptive name  of  "  Perfectionists  "  to  themselves  as  their 
particular  designation  (just  as  other  bodies  of  religionists 
have  laid  claim  to  the  names  of  "  Christians,"  "  Disciples," 
and  the  like  as  their  specific  names),  is  illustrated  by  the 
survival  of  this  special  use  of  the  term,  and  that  in  an 
even  narrower  application,  alongside  of  its  more  general 
employment,  in  the  definition  of  the  word  "  Perfectionist " 
(not  usually  of  "Perfectionism")3  in  our  current  English 
dictionaries,  as  well  as  in  our  Keligious  encyclopaedias.  A 
very  good  example  is  supplied  by  John  Henry  Blunt's 
"  Dictionary  of  Sects,  Heresies,  Ecclesiastical  Parties  and 
Schools  of  Religious  Thought"  (1874).  Under  the  head 
of  "  Perfectionists,"  he  describes  only  "  a  licentious  Amer- 
ican sect  of  Antinomian  communists." 4  All  other  per- 
fectionists he  classes  under  the  head  of  "  Perfectibilists," 
a  distinction  in  designation  to  which  he  did  not  succeed 
in  giving  currency.5 

The  particular  sect  to  which  thus  the  name  of  "  Per- 
fectionists "  is  reserved  by  Blunt  is  no  more  perfectionist 
than  other  perfectionist  parties;  nor  did  it  arise  under 
influences  specifically  different  from  those  to  which  the 
perfectionist  parties  which  have  most  sharply  repudiated 
relationship  with  it  owed  their  own  origin,  nor  can  it  be 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists "  39 

represented  as  without  some  common  interests  with  them. 
It  differs  from  them,  however,  not  merely  in  drawing  off 
to  itself  and  forming  a  separate  sect  instead  of  contenting 
itself  with  acting  as  leaven  within  existing  churches;  but 
also  in  the  particular  doctrinal  system  which  it  developed 
for  itself,  and  which  it  utilized  for  the  support  and  expo- 
sition not  only  of  its  perfectionism,  but  also  of  certain 
radical  social  theories,  which,  having  the  courage  of  its  con- 
victions, it  presently  put  into  practice  up  to  a  very  bitter 
end.  In  this  perfectionist  sect,  we  have  therefore  the  op- 
portunity to  observe  a  perfectionism  working  itself  out  in 
life  under  leadership  strong  enough  to  enable  it  to  go  its 
own  way,  along  the  lines  of  a  development  distinctly  logi- 
cal, although  narrow  and  inconsiderate,  untrammeled  by 
considerations  derived  from  tradition,  whether  religious, 
ethical,  or  social,  and  unaffected  by  the  universal  judgment 
of  the  community  in  which  it  lived.  A  great  deal  of  ability 
was  expended  in  the  elaboration  of  its  underlying  religious 
and  social  theory;  an  incredible  audacity  was  shown  in 
putting  this  theory  into  practice;  and  a  certain  amount  of 
temporary  success  attended  the  enterprise.  But  the  think- 
ing embodied  in  it  was  as  grotesque  as  it  was  acute; 
it  was  astuteness  rather  than  wisdom  which  presided  over 
its  social  organization ;  and  the  experiment  had  fairly 
reached  the  end  of  its  possibilities  of  persistence  in  about 
a  third  of  a  century.  There  is  much  to  be  learned  from  a 
study  of  it;  there  is  nothing  about  it  which  can  fairly  be 
represented  as  edifying. 

The  "  Perfectionists  "  or  "  Bible  Communists,"  as  they 
otherwise  called  themselves,  are  only  one  of  the  many 
unwholesome  products  of  the  great  religious  excitement 
which  swept  over  western  and  central  New  York  in  the 
late  twenties  and  early  thirties  of  the  last  century,  find- 
ing its  way  in  the  early  thirties  also  into  New  England 
and  thence  over  the  world.  Albert  Barnes  defines  a  re- 
vival for  us  as  "  the  simultaneous  conversion  of  many  to 
Christ";  adding,  in  order  to  give  completeness  to  the  de- 
scription, "  and  a  rapid  advance  in  promoting  the  purity 


40  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

and  zeal  of  Christians."  6  If  this  were  a  complete  descrip- 
tion of  the  phenomena  which  may  display  themselves  in 
revivals,  they  would  always  be  such  unmixed  blessings  that 
they  could  scarcely  be  connected  with  an  earthly  origin; 
and  they  certainly  could  leave  behind  them  nothing  but 
good  effects.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  human  elements 
are  always  mixed  with  them;  and  these  human  elements 
may  on  occasion  be  so  predominant  that  any  divine  in- 
gredient which  may  be  hidden  in  them  may  be  negligible. 
Accordingly  Albert  Barnes  proceeds  at  once  to  speak  of 
them,  as  actually  experienced,  as  also  periods  of  religious 
"  excitement " ;  and  to  liken  this  excitement  in  its  nature 
and  effects  to  the  excitement  which  tears  men  in  a  politi- 
cal campaign  or  sweeps  them  off  their  feet  on  the  approach 
of  war.  Here  is  something  quite  out  of  the  focus  of  his 
former  description;  for  excitement,  even  though  religious, 
has  no  necessary  relation,  whether  as  cause,  accompani- 
ment, or  effect,  with  the  converting  or  reviving  operations 
of  the  Spirit  of  God.  "  A  revival  or  religious  excitement," 
Archibald  Alexander  tells  us,7  "  may  exist  and  be  very 
powerful,  and  affect  many  minds,  when  the  producing 
cause  is  not  the  Spirit  of  God ;  and  when  the  truth  of  God 
is  not  the  means  of  the  awakening."  "  Religious  excite- 
ments," he  accordingly  adds,  "  have  been  common  among 
Pagans,  Mohammedans,  heretics  and  Papists."  W.  B. 
Sprague  similarly  warns  us  in  the  opening  pages  of  his 
classical  "  Lectures  on  Revivals  of  Religion," 8  not  to 
"  mistake  a  gust  of  animal  passion  for  the  awakening  or 
converting  operations  of  God's  Holy  Spirit."  Great  ex- 
citement may  no  doubt  attend  a  true  revival,  but  it  is  not 
part  and  parcel  of  it;  and  it  may  be  very  great  and  yet 
there  be  no  true  revival  at  all.  "  It  may  be  an  excitement 
produced  not  by  the  power  of  divine  truth,  but  by  artificial 
stimulus  applied  to  the  imaginations  and  passions  for.  the 
very  purpose  of  producing  commotion  both  within  and 
without."  Let  us  remember  that  God  declares  Himself 
the  God  of  order,  and  that  disorder  can  therefore  never  be 
the  authentic  mark  of  His  working.     If   God  is  working 


1921]  Nayes  and  his  "Bible  Communists''  11 

where  disorder  is,  it  is  in  spite  of  the  disorder,  not  because 
of  it;  the  disorder  is  itself  only  the  cause  of  evil.  "A 
great  work  of  the  Spirit,"  says  Archibald  Alexander,0  "  may 
be  mingled  with  much  enthusiasm  and  disorder,  but  its 
beauty  will  be  marred  and  its  progress  retarded  by  every 
such  spurious  mixture."  "All  means  and  measures  which 
produce  a  high  degree  of  excitement,  or  a  great  commotion 
of  the  passions,"  he  therefore  advises,  should  be  avoided  ; 
because  religion  does  not  consist  in  these  violent  emotions, 
nor   is   it  promoted   by   them ;   and   when    the}r   subside  a 

wretched  state  of  deadness  is  sure  to  succeed 

Fanaticism,  however  much  it  may  assume  the  garb  and 
language  of  piety,  is  its  opposite."  "  The  Church,"  he  ac- 
cordingly continues,  "  is  not  always  benefited  by  what  wre 
call  revivals;  but  sometimes  the  effects  of  such  commotions 
are  followed  by  a  desolation  which  resembles  the  work  of 
a  tornado.  I  have  never  seen  so  great  insensibility  in  any 
persons  as  in  those  wdio  had  been  subjects  of  violent  re- 
ligious excitement;  and  I  have  never  seen  any  sinners  so 
bold  and  reckless  in  their  impiety  as  those  who  had  once 
been  loud  professors  and  foremost  in  the  time  of  revival." 
It  is  with  these  evils  in  mind  that,  in  face  of  the  possibil- 
ity that  a  sinner  here  and  there  may  nevertheless  chance 
to  be  really  converted  through  the  action  of  this  excite- 
ment, Joel  Hawes  of  Hartford  declares  10  that  "  a  sinner  may 
be  converted  at  too  great  an  expense."  No  more  awTful 
arraignment  of  the  religious  excitement,  which  sometimes 
accompanies  and  sometimes  serves  as  a  substitute  for  re- 
vivals, could  be  phrased.  In  point  of  fact  such  excitement 
has  no  Christian  character  whatever;  its  affinities  are,  as 
Archibald  Alexander  has  already  reminded  us,  wTith  the 
universal  religious  phenomena  wThich  Elizabeth  Bobbins 
sums  up  under  the  name  of  mrenadism,11  a  term  wnich  she 
defines  broadly  enough  to  make  it  include  "  all  intoxicat- 
ing, will-destroying  excesses  of  religious  fervor  in  which 
*  the  multitude '  have  a  part."  When  wTe  remember  the 
"  exercises "  wThich  have  often  attended  revivals  and  the 
moral  delinquencies  which  have  sometimes  stained   them, 


42  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

we  shall  be  compelled  with  bowed  heads  to  recognize  that 
they  too  may  be  so  perverted  as  to  be  included  in  her 
observation  :  —  "It  is  a  remarkable  fact  in  the  history  of 
religion  that  men  of  widely  differing  creeds  and  countries 
have  agreed  in  attaching  a  spiritual  value  to  hysteria, 
chorea,  and  catalepsy  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  a  frenzy  of 
cruelty  and  sensuality  on  the  other.  Diseased  nerves  and 
morals  have  often  been  ranked  as  the  highest  expression 
of  man's  faith  and  devotion." 

The  intrusion  of  this  debasing  excitement  into  revival 
movements,  with  the  effect  sometimes  of  destroying  them 
altogether,  sometimes  of  only  greatly  curtailing  and 
marring  their  beneficent  results,  is  ordinarily  traceable  to 
one  or  the  other  of  two  inciting  causes.  One  of  these  is 
found  in  the  character  of  the  population  among  whom  the 
revival  is  propagated;  the  other  in  the  character  of  its 
promoters  and  the  methods  they  employ  in  promoting  it, — 
methods  better  adapted  to  lash  the  nerves  into  uncon- 
trollable agitation  than  to  bring  the  sinner  to  intelligent 
trust  in  his  Saviour.  Both  of  these  causes  were  present 
and  operative  in  the  great  revival  movement  which  swept 
over  western  and  central  New  York  in  the  late  twenties 
and  early  thirties  of  the  last  century. 

It  has  been  thought  that  the  character  of  the  population 
of  this  region,  derived  from  that  of  its  first  settlers,  laid 
them  particularly  open  to  fanaticism.  The  earliest 
stratum  of  settlers,  entering  the  Palmyra  country  from 
Vermont  in  the  second  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
was,  we  are  told,  of  "  rather  unsavory  fame  " ;  and  although 
this  stratum  was  overlaid  in  the  next  decade  by  a  virile, 
intelligent,  industrious  class  of  settlers  from  eastern  New 
York  and  New  England,  the  earlier  settlers  remained,  and 
by  mixture  with  the  newer  comers  gave  a  psychological  char- 
acter and  a  psychological  history  of  its  own  to  this  region. 
It  has  been,  therefore,  it  is  said,  on  the  one  hand  "  a  center 
of  sane  and  progressive  social  movements,"  but  on  the  other 
hand  a  veritable  "  hot-bed  of  fanaticism,"  and  the  two 
tendencies   have   entered   into   every   possible   combination 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists"'  43 

with  one  another,  some  of  them  startling  enough.  It  seems 
hardly  just,  however,  to  ascribe  the  whole  of  the  evil  to 
the  earlier  and  the  whole  of  the  good  to  the  later  immigra- 
tion. There  were  many  men  of  the  highest  character 
among  the  earlier  immigrants,  and  the  newcomers  them- 
selves brought  with  them  that  tendency  to  eccentricity  of 
opinion  and  extremity  of  temper  which  seems  to  be  in  the 
New  England  blood,  and  which  has  made  New  England, 
along  with  its  intellectual  and  moral  leadership  of  the 
nation,  also  unhappily  the  fertile  seed-plot  of  fads  and 
extravagances.  Central  and  western  New  York  was  in 
effect  only  an  extended,  and,  because  of  its  isolation  and 
the  hardness  of  its  pioneer  life,  in  these  respects,  an  in- 
tensified New  England.12  The  period,  moreover,  was  one 
of  universal  excitability.  "  The  great  improvement  in  the 
mechanic  arts,  and  the  wide  diffusion  of  knowledge,"  says 
Albert  B.  Dod,  writing  in  1835,13  "  have  given  a  strong- 
impulse  to  the  popular  mind;  and  everywhere  the  social 
mass  is  seen  to  be  in  such  a  state  of  agitation,  that  the 
lightest  breath  may  make  it  heave  and  foam."  Men  stood 
in  a  condition  of  permanent  astonishment.  Everything 
seemed  possible.  They  did  not  know  what  would  come 
next,  and  thought  it  might  be  anything.  They  lived  on 
perpetual  tip-toe.  It  would  have  been  strange  if  a  raw 
population  like  that  of  central  and  western  New  York  had 
retained  its  balance  in  such  a  time.  That  it  did  not  may 
be  observed  from  the  long  list  of  fanaticisms  into  which 
it  fell,  some  of  which  are  alluded  to  by  the  writer  on  whom 
we  were  drawing  at  the  opening  of  this  paragraph;  and 
the  waves  of  most  of  which  it  sent  washing  back  into  the 
parent  New  England. 

"  The  earliest  agitation  which  helped  to  reveal  the  un- 
fortunate strain  in  the  blood,"  he  writes,  "was  the  crusade 
against  the  Masonic  Fraternity  in  1826,  originating  in  a 
wide-spread  belief,  unconfirmed  by  sound  evidence,  that 
one  Morgan  had  been  foully  dealt  with  at  the  behest  of  the 
Order,  whose  secrets  he  was  accused  of  revealing.  A 
single  and  mighty  wave  of  indignation  nearly  obliterated 
the  fraternity  from  that  part  of  the  United  States.     In  the 


44  Bibliotheca  Sa-cra  [Jan. 

early  forties  the  Rochester  country  was  one  of  the  two 
chief  centers  of  the  propaganda  and  excitement  associated 
with  the  predictions  of  the  Vermont  farmer,  William 
Miller,  with  respect  to  the  approaching  judgment  and  the 
destruction  of  the  world.  In  Western  New  York,  it  be- 
came a  thoroughly  irrational  epidemic.  Men  and  women 
forsook  their  employments  and  gave  themselves  over  to 
watchings  and  prayer.  They  hardly  slept  or  ate,  but  in 
robes  of  white  awaited  the  coming  of  the  bridegroom.  The 
result  in  very  many  cases  was  either  physical  or  mental 
exhaustion,  ending  in  the  horrors  of  insanity.  ...  In 
the  late  forties  the  delusion  of  spiritualism  entered  upon 
its  epidemic  course  with  the  '  Rochester  rappings '  of  the 
Fox  sisters.  It  spread  by  imitation  to  New  England,  and 
thence  to  Europe,  and  many  of  the  phenomena  attending 
it,  —  the  trance,  the  vision,  the  convulsive  movement,  the 
involuntary  dancing,  the  many  indications  of  mental  and 
nervous  irritability,  —  had  closest  affinity  to  the  extraor- 
dinary revival  effects  which  we  have  elsewhere  observed. 
....  I  wish  to  remark  again  one  other  strange  and  base 
spiritual  product  of  this  unique  population.  Of  course  it 
is  generally  known  that  Mormonism  had  its  beginning  in 
this  region,  but  it  is  not  so  generally  understood,  I  think, 
that  Mormonism  was  literally  born  and  bred  in  the  un- 
healthy revival  atmosphere  which  has  just  been  described.1* 
In  fact  the  sect  of  so-called  Latter-Day  Saints  might  never 
have  existed  except  for  the  extraordinary  mental  agitation 
about  religious  matters  which  pervaded  Western  New 
York  in  this  period.  Mormonism  has  two  main  roots,  the 
one  to  be  traced  into  the  mental  and  nervous  character- 
istics of  the  personality  of  Joseph  Smith.  Jr.,  the  other 
into  the  revival  environment  in  which  he  lived  and  moved 
—  and  neither  is  a  sufficient  explanation  without  the 
other."  15 

A  population  like  this  could  be  trusted  to  produce  spon- 
taneously all  the  evil  fruits  of  spurious  religious  excite- 
ment. In  point  of  fact  it  did  so.  The  winter  upon  whom 
we  have  been  drawing,  speaking  of  the  period  preceding 
that  to  which  we  wish  to  direct  particular  attention,  points 
out  that  during  it  "  an  unbridled  revival  activity  charac- 
terized the  ordinary  religious  life  of  Western  New  York." 

"  Before  Finney's  personality  issued  upon  the  scene."  he 
says, 1C    "  before    any    particular    individual    assumed    the 


1921]  Noyes  and  Mb  (i  Bible  Communists"  \~> 

leadership,  this  fanatical  restlessness,  this  tendency  to 
spiritual  commotion,  was  in  the  mind  of  the  population 
and  periodically  broke  forth  in  fantastic  and  exciting  re- 
vivals. There  were  whole  stretches  of  country  in  those 
parts  that  for  generations  were  known  as  the  "burnt  dis- 
trict,' and  which  Finney  found  so  blistered  and  withered 
by  constant  revival  flame  that  no  sprout,  no  blade  of  spirit- 
ual life  could  be  caused  to  grow.17  Only  the  apples  of 
Sodom  flourished  in  the  form  of  ignorance,  intolerance,  or 
boasted  sinlessness,  and  a  tendency  to  freedom  and  spirit- 
ual affinities." 

But  this  fanaticism-loving  populace  was  not  left  to  the 
spontaneous  manifestation  of  its  tendency  to  religious  ex- 
citement. It  was  sedulously  incited  to  it  by  its  religious 
leaders,  and  naturally  its  last  state  was  no  better  than  the 
first.  Tf  anyone  wishes  to  enjoy  the  illusion  of  actually 
"  assisting  "  at  an  average  revival-meeting  of  this  period, 
he  has  only  to  read  Mrs.  Trollope's  painfully  realistic 
descriptions,  alike  of  a  town  revival  and  of  a  camp  meet- 
ing.18 Albert  Barnes  warns  us,19  to  be  sure,  against  trust- 
ing the  testimony  of  "  the  Trollopes,  and  the  Fidlers,  and 
the  Martineaus  "  —  "  persons,"  he  says,  "  having  as  few 
qualifications  for  being  correct  reporters  of  revivals  of 
religion  as  could  be  found  in  the  wide  world."  20  It  would 
be  absurd,  of  course,  to  resort  to  Mrs.  Trollope  for  the 
religious  interpretation  of  revival  phenomena;  but  the 
general  trustworthiness  of  her  report  of  revival  occur- 
rences, actually  witnessed  by  her,  is  unimpeachable,  when 
allowance  is  once  made  for  the  one-sidedness  of  her  obser- 
vation, due  to  her  unsympathetic  attitude.  She  describes 
only  what  she  saw;  she  does  not  herself  generalize  on  it. 
But  what  she  describes  might  be  seen  anywhere  in  the 
western  country  at  the  time,  sometimes  no  doubt  in  less, 
often  unfortunately  in  much  more,  offensive  forms. 

Of  course  we  are  not  confined  to  the  testimony  of 
Mrs.  Trollope  and  writers  of  her  type  to  learn  what  revivals 
at  this  period  were  like.  We  have,  for  example,  a  very 
sympathetic  summary  account  of  them  from  the  pen  of 
Andrew  Reed,  one  of  two  very  competent  observers  sent 


46  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

in  the  early  thirties  by  the  Congregational  Union  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  to  visit  the  American  churches.21  Eeed 
does  not  doubt  that  the  revivals  were  in  themselves  a  work 
of  God,  the  results  of  which  by  and  large  were  for  his 
glory.22  But  neither  is  he  able  to  close  his  eyes  to  the 
evils  which  accompanied  them;  especially  the  opportunity 
afforded  by  them  and  eagerly  availed  of,  for  vain,  weak, 
and  fanatical  men  to  exploit  for  their  own  ends  the  emo- 
tional excitement  which  was  aroused.  That  there  were 
serious  evils  intrinsic  in  the  very  manner  in  which  the 
revivals  were  conducted,  he  is  compelled  to  recognize;  but 
that,  he  says,  was  not  after  all  the  worst  of  it,  — "  they 
seem  to  have  the  faculty  of  generating  a  spirit  worse  than 
themselves."  "  Kash  measures  attract  rash  men/'  he  ex- 
plains:23 "  and  their  onward  and  devious  path  is  tracked 
by  the  most  unsanctified  violence  and  reckless  extrava- 
gance." "  They  are  liable  to  run  out  into  wild  fanaticism," 
he  explains  further.24 

"A  revival  is  a  crisis.  It  implies  that  a  great  mass  of 
human  passion,  that  was  dormant,  is  suddenly  called  into 
action.  Those  who  are  not  moved  to  God  will  be  moved 
to  the  greater  evil.  The  hay,  wood  and  stubble,  which  are 
always  to  be  found  even  within  the  pale  of  the  church, 
will  enkindle,  and  flash,  and  flare.  It  is  an  occasion  favor- 
able to  display,  and  the  vain  and  presumptuous  will  en- 
deavor to  seize  on  it,  and  turn  it  to  their  own  account. 
Whether  such  a  state  of  general  excitement  is  connected 
with  worldly  or  religious  objects,  it  is  too  much,  and  would 
argue  great  ignorance  of  human  nature,  to  expect,  that  it 
should  not  be  liable  to  excess  and  disorder."  25 

These  somewhat  general  reflections  are  brought  nearer 
to  the  point  of  most  interest  to  us  by  the  testimony  of 
James  H.  Hotchkin,  the  historian  of  western  New  York, 
and  a  most  cautious  and  sober-minded  man,  speaking  di- 
rectly out  of  his  own  experience.26  He,  too,  of  course,  is 
sympathetic  to  the  revival  movement  in  itself.  But  he 
feels  constrained  to  note  explicitly  that  "  circumstances 
have  occurred  in  connection  with  these  revivals,  which  give 
the  most  painful  exhibition  of  the  wickedness  and  folly  of 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists"  47 

man,  when,  leaving  the  divine  word,  he  imagines  himself 
wiser  than  God."  He  is  led  by  his  experience  to  the  gener- 
alization that  "  whenever  the  religions  excitement  has  been 
strong,  a  spirit  of  fanaticism  has  been  induced,  and  has 
greatly  hindered  the  good  work,  and  marred  its  beauty." 
He  has  observed  further  that  these  evils  have  been  particu- 
larly apparent,  when  the  revival-work  was  carried  on,  not 
by  the  settled  ministry,  but  by  outsiders  called  in  because 
of  some  fancied  particular  adaptation  to  this  work.  No 
doubt  there  were  among  these  "  revival  men  "  or  "  revival 
preachers  "  men  of  true  piety,  whose  usefulness  was  dem- 
onstrated by  the  results  of  their  labors.  Of  others,  how- 
ever, Hotchkin  declares  himself  "  constrained  to  believe 
that  if  they  were  not  impostors  they  must  have  been  self- 
deceived  fanatics " ;  and,  certainly,  he  declares,  "  their 
operations  and  influences  were  destructive  in  a  high  degree 
and  brought  discredit  on  the  revival."  One  and  another 
of  these  men  are  mentioned  and  described ;  and  it  is  pointed 
out  that  while  mighty  men  in  stirring  up  excitement,  they 
failed,  under  the  test  of  time,  in  bringing  men  really  to 
Christ.  Thus  they  proved  themselves  to  be  mere  religious 
demagogues;  for  does  not  Gustave  Le  Bon  tell  us,27  when 
describing  demagogues  and  their  ways,  that,  "it  is  easy 
to  imbue  the  mind  of  a  crowd  with  a  passing  opinion,  but 
very  difficult  to  implant  therein  a  lasting  belief  "  ? 

It  is  not,  however,  until  we  turn  to  the  portion  of  his 
book  in  which  Hotchkin  records  the  life-histories  of  the 
individual  churches  that  we  realize  the  amount  either  of 
the  excitement  stirred  up  by  these  men  or  of  the  evil 
wrought  by  it.  Yet,  as  he  is  speaking  only  of  the  Presby- 
terian churches,  which  suffered  least  of  all  the  churches 
from  this  disease,  we  are  looking  through  his  eyes  only  at 
the  outer  fringes  of  the  evil.  Even  in  the  Presbyterian 
churches  it  certainly  was  bad  enough.28  One  Augustus 
Littlejohn 29  seems  to  have  been  the  evil  genius  of  the 
Presbytery  of  Angelica,  one  Luther  Myrick  30  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  Onondaga,  one  James  Boyle  31  of  the  Presbytery 
of   Geneva.     These  were  all   famous   revivalists,   enjoying 


48  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

high  favor  not  only  in  western  New  York,  but  to  the  East 
as  well,  and  running  through  great  careers ;  and  only  when 
they  had  wrought  their  ruin,  did  they  fall  at  last  under 
the  ban  of  the  church  they  had  distracted  and  whose  people 
they  had  harassed  and  misled.  It  is  appalling  to  observe 
the  number  of  churches  of  which  it  is  recorded  that  they 
were  disturbed,  injured,  or  destroyed  by  the  activities  of 
these  men  and  their  coadjutors.  We  need  not  repeat  these 
records  here:  let  that  of  Manlius  Center  Church  serve  as 
a  single  example  —  it  was,  we  read,32  "  torn  to  pieces  and 
became  extinct  through  the  influences  of  Mr.  Myrick  and 
other  errorists."  We  prefer  to  transcribe  merely  the  long 
record  of  the  experiences  of  the  church  of  Conhocton,33  as 
particularly  instructive  of  the  state  of  mind  induced  by  the 
prevalent  religious  excitement. 

"  In  the  summer  of  1832,"  we  read,  "  Rev.  James  Boyle 
held  with  this  church  a  protracted  meeting,  which  was 
continued  through  a  number  of  days.  The  measures  which 
were  common  with  him  and  others  of  that  class  of  evan- 
gelists were  employed,  and  a  state  of  high  excitement  was 
produced,  and  many  professed  to  be  converted,  and  no 
doubt  some  souls  really  were  born  again.  A  large  number 
were  received  into  the  church,  swelling  its  numbers  to  one 
hundred  and  ten  members.  It  might  seem  that  the  days 
of  the  mourning  of  this  church  were  now  ended,  and  that 
she  must  now  have  acquired  such  a  measure  of  strength 
as  to  be  able  in  all  future  time  to  enjoy  the  stated  minis- 
trations of  the  gospel.  But  such  was  not  the  case.  Very 
little  pecuniary  strength  was  acquired,  a  spirit  of  fanati- 
cism was  infused  into  the  minds  of  many,  and  a  state  of 
preparation  to  be  carried  away  with  any  delusion  was 
induced.  With  respect  to  the  converts,  so  called,  the 
writer  is  unable  to  say  what  has  become  of  them.  He  be- 
lieves very  few  of  them  give  satisfactory  evidence  of  having 
been  born  again.  In  the  winter  of  1837-38,  a  very  singular 
state  of  things  existed.  Mrs.  Conn,  who  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  church  a  number  of  years,  and  highly  esteemed  by 
some,  at  least,  as  a  woman  of  piety  and  activity  in  promot- 
ing the  cause  of  Christ,  began  to  take  a  very  conspicuous 
part  in  the  meetings  for  social  and  religious  worship.  She 
professed  to  have  special  communications  from  God,  and 
to  know  the  secrets  of  the  hearts  of  those  with  whom  she 


1921]  Noyes  and  Jits  "Bible  Communists-'  r» 

was  conversant.  She  assumed  an  authoritative  position 
in  the  church,  and  gave  out  her  directions  as  from  <lo<l 
Himself,  denouncing  as  hypocrites  in  the  church  all  who 
did  not  submit  to  her  mandates.  She  predicted  the  speedy 
death,  in  the  most  awful  manner,  ol*  particular  individuals 
who  opposed  her  authority,  and  manifested  a  most  im- 
placable rancor  against  all  who  did  not  acknowledge  her 
inspiration.  In  her  proceedings  she  was  assisted  by  a 
young  man,  who  for  his  misconduct  had  been  excommuni- 
cated from  the  church  of  Prattsburgh.  A  number  of  the 
members  of  the  church  of  Conhocton  were  carried  away 
with  this  delusion,  and  acknowledged  Mrs.  Conn  as  one 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty.  So  completely  were 
they  infatuated,  that  they  seemed  to  suppose  that  their 
eternal  salvation  depended  on  the  will  of  Mrs.  Conn.  They 
were  ready  to  obey  all  her  commands,  and  to  assert  as 
truth  anything  which  she  should  order.  Some  of  them 
became  permanently  deranged,  and  one  or  two  families 
were  nearly  broken  up.  Nor  was  this  delusion  confined 
wholly  to  the  church  of  Conhocton.  Mrs.  Conn  and  her 
coadjutor  went  into  the  county  of  Wyoming,  and  some  in 
that  region  were  brought  under  the  delusion,  and  received 
her  as  a  messenger  sent  from  God.  Whether  to  view  Mrs. 
Conn  as  an  impostor,  a  wild  fanatic,  or  a  deranged  person, 
the  writer  will  not  assume  the  responsibility  of  determin- 
ing. Many  circumstances  would  favor  the  idea  of  im- 
posture. The  writer  is  informed  that  she  has  become 
a  maniac.  This  circumstance  may  favor  the  idea  of  men- 
tal aberration.  But  the  consequences  to  the  church  were 
most  disastrous." 

One  of  the  most  distressing  accompaniments  of  revival 
excitements  has  been  a  tendency  which  has  often  showed 
itself  in  connection  with  them  to  sexual  irregularities. 
This  tendency  does  not  seem  to  find  its  account,  solely  at 
least,  in  the  low  level  of  culture  of  the  populations  which 
have  furnished  the  materials  on  which  these  revivals 
chiefly  worked.  And  it  certainly  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  the  opportunity  taken  by  evil-minded  persons  from 
the  conditions  created  by  the  revivals  for  corrupt  practices. 
The  opportunity  has  been  afforded  and  improved,  the  camp 
meetings  of  course  supplying  the  most  flagrant  instances. 
K.  Davidson,  describing  the  great  Kentucky  revival  at  the 
Vol.   LXXVIII.     No.    309.     4 


50  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

opening  of  the  century,  feels  bound  to  consecrate  a  section 
to  the  "  too  free  communication  of  the  sexes,"  and,  although 
he  excuses  himself  from  giving  details  on  account  of  the 
delicacy  of  the  subject,  he  tells  us  plainly  that  dissolute 
characters  of  both  sexes  frequented  the  camps  "  to  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  prevailing 
licence  and  disorder." 34  This,  however,  was  only  in- 
cidental to  the  revivals  themselves.  What  needs  to  be 
recognized  is  that  the  nervous  exaltation,  which  was  the 
direct  product  of  the  revival  methods  too  frequently  em- 
ployed, seems  not  merely  to  have  broken  down  the  re- 
straints to  the  unchecked  discharge  of  other  than  religious 
emotions,  but  to  have  opened  the  channels  for  their  dis- 
charge, and  even  to  have  incited  to  it,  —  so  that,  as  W. 
Hep  worth  Dixon  pats  it  in  vivid  phrase,  "  the  passions 
seemed  to  be  all  unloosed,  and  to  go  astray  without  let  or 
guide."  33  It  was  the  participators  in  the  revival  excite- 
ment themselves  who  went  astray.  John  Lyle,  reviewing 
the  case  of  the  women  who  had  been  the  subjects  of  the 
"  falling  exercise  "  prior  to  November,  1802,  found  several 
"  by  the  most  unequivocal  proofs,  to  have  since  fallen  still 
more  wofully ;  no  fewer  than  four  individuals  having  trans- 
gressed in  the  most  flagrant  manner."  36 

Occasion  has  of  course  been  taken  from  such  facts  to 
confuse  emotions  which  differ  toto  coelo.  There  is  actually 
a  theory  extant  that  the  religious  emotion  is  nothing  but 
the  sexual  ecstasy  misinterpreted, 37  and  it  is  quite  common 
to  represent  "  the  human  love-passion  and  the  spiritual 
love-passion  "  as  lying  in  particularly  close  contiguity,  if 
not  even  as  "  delicately  interwoven."  38  There  is  no  justi- 
fication for  such  representations.  They  rest  on  an  incred- 
ible confusion  of  the  movements  of  the  human  soul  set  in 
the  midst  between  two  environments,  and  accessible  to 
influences  alike  from  below  and  above.  Not  even  all  love 
of  man  is  sex-love;  no  love  of  man  is  religious  love;  re- 
ligious love  is  not  the  entirety  of  the  religious  emotion. 
We  are  in  the  presence  here  of  nothing  more  mysterious 
than  the  obvious  fact  that  man's  emotional  nature  is  a 


1921]  Xoyes  and  his  "  Bible  Communists  n  51 

unit,  and  violent  emotional  discharges  may  readily  be  de- 
flected from  one  to  another  direction.  The  phenomenon 
we  are  witnessing  is  only  the  familiar  one  of  the  peril  of 
abandoning  control  of  ourselves.  When  once  we  drop  the 
reins  and  give  unbridled  play  to  our  passional  movements, 
there  is  no  telling  what  the  end  may  be.  We  cannot  act 
the  maenad  in  religion  and  expect  our  inaenadism  to  mani- 
fest itself  nowhere  else.  If  religion  becomes  synonymous 
to  us  with  excess,  all  excess  is  very  apt  to  come  to  seem 
to  us  religious.  It  is  in  this  sense  only  that  it  is  true, 
when  Baring  Gould  declares  that  "  spiritual  exaltation 
runs  naturally,  inevitably,  into  licentiousness,  unless  held 
in  the  iron  bands  of  discipline  to  the  moral  law."  39  Daven- 
port's wider  generalization  is  truer : 40  "  WThenever  reason 
is  subordinated  and  feeling  is  supreme,  the  influence  is 
always  in  the  direction  of  the  sweeping  away  of  inhibitive 
control." 

It  is,  moreover,  not  merely  into  licentiousness  that  re- 
ligious maenadism  tends  to  run,  but  into  all  forms  of 
lawless  action.  J.  H.  Noyes  shows  an  insight  unwonted 
to  him,  therefore,  when  he  represents  revivals  —  of  course, 
as  known  to  him,  that  is  to  say  the  revivals  of  "  religious 
excitement "  —  as  intrinsically  subversive  of  the  whole 
social  as  well  as  moral  order.  Defining  them  from  the 
true  maenad istic  point  of  view,  and  even  in  language 
strongly  reminiscent  of  heathen  modes  of  speech,  he  de- 
clares 41  that  a  revival  is  the  actual  intrusion  of  the  power 
of  God  into  human  affairs :  that  is  to  say,  says  he,  it  is  the 
entrance  into  the  complex  of  active  causes  of  "  the  actual 
Deity."  This  entrance  of  "  the  actual  Deity  "  into  human 
life  is  conceived  after  the  fashion  of  the  intrusion  of  a 
universal  natural  force,  only  more  powerful  than  other 
natural  forces.42  Conservatives  fancy  that  its  operations 
are  restricted  to  the  conversion  of  souls.  That,  says  Xoyes, 
is  absurd:  you  cannot  cabin  and  crib  such  a  force  in  that 
way.  Once  set  in  motion,  "  it  goes,  or  tends  to  go,  into 
all  the  affairs  of  life."  A  revolution  is  really  inaugurated 
in  every  revival,  and  if  it  does  not  overturn  and  recon- 


52  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

stitute  all  the  life  of  the  world,  that  is  only  because  its 
action  is  prematurely  checked.  "  Kevival  preachers  and 
Kevival  converts  are  necessarily  in  the  incipient  stage  of 
a  theocratic  revolution ;  they  have  in  their  experience  the 
beginning  of  the  life  under  the  Higher  Law;  and  if  they 
stop  at  internal  religious  changes,  it  is  because  the  in- 
fluence that  converted  them  is  suppressed."  The  term 
"  higher  law  "  here  is  ominous :  the  first  effect  of  revivals 
is  conceived  as  emancipation  from  the  laws  which  now 
govern  life;  and  if  redintegration  follows  it  must  be  under 
a  higher  law  than  the}7.  They  do  and  always  must  leave 
social  disintegration  in  their  train. 

The  prominence  particularly  of  sexual  irregularities  in 
the  train  of  the  revivals  of  "  religious  excitement "  is  prob- 
ably in  large  part  due,  therefore,  only  to  the  large  oppor- 
tunities and  immediate  temptations  to  irregularities  of  this 
particular  order  offered  by  revival  intimacies.  The  period 
in  which  the  revivals  of  the  late  twenties  and  early  thirties 
took  place  was,  moreover,  one  of  widespread  unrest  with 
respect  to  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  and  of  relaxation  of 
the  strictness  of  traditional  habits;  and  the  communistic 
experiments  incited  in  the  middle  years  of  the  twenties  by 
Kobert  Owen  no  doubt  also  brought  their  contribution  to 
the  result.  With  respect  to  these  particular  revivals,  how- 
ever, we  must  not  underestimate  the  influence  of  the  fan- 
tastic apocalyptical  theories,  by  which  a  large  part  of  their 
unhealthy  excitement  was  produced,  and  which  by  per- 
suading men  that  they  no  longer  lived  on  the  earthly  plane 
or  under  earthly  law,  gave  to  sexual  irregularities  a  re- 
ligious sanction  or  even  made  them  appear  a  religious 
duty.  Being  maenads,  men  and  women  committed  adultery 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God's  sake,  —  as  the  victims  of  the 
atrocious  Cochrane  were  doing  in  Maine  and  New  Hamp- 
shire a  short  decade  before, 43  and  the  associates  of  the 
unspeakable  Matthias  —  himself  a  product  of  these  re- 
vivals—  were  doing  contemporaneously  in  New  York  and 
Sing  Sing.44  Thus  arose  the  shocking  theory  of  "  spiritual 
wives  "  which  was  intimately  connected  with  the  perfec- 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists  "  53 

tionism  that  constituted,  after  all  said,  the  most  un- 
wholesome product  of  the  revival  excitement.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  "  spiritual  wives  "  at  the  outset 
were  anything  other  than  the  name,  strictly  taken,  imports, 
—  intimate  spiritual  companions  and  fellow  workers  in  a 
common  task.45  The  hot  perfectionist,  living  in  the  new 
order,  attached  to  himself  a  like-minded  female  companion 
who  shared  his  labors  at  home  and  abroad;  they  lived  to- 
gether, traveled  together,  worked  together,  in  a  fellowship 
closer  than  and  superseding  that  of  husband  and  wife.  It 
was  a  renewal  of  the  "  spiritual  wives  "  —  the  agapetw  or 
virgines  subintroductw  —  of  the  early  church ; 48  but  it 
required  only  a  few  months  to  run  through  the  development 
that  its  earlier  model  consumed  some  centuries  in  travers- 
ing. What  was  in  the  first  instance  only  an  incredible 
folly  and  dangerous  fanaticism  soon  became  an  intolerable 
scandal  and  dissolute  practice.  "  Spiritual  wives  "  became 
carnal  mistresses:  here  and  there  injured  husbands  avenged 
their  wrongs  by  physical  assaults  upon  the  clerical 
offenders,  and  when  the  husband  was  complaisant  the  out- 
raged community  was  apt  to  treat  both  legal  and  spiritual 
husband  to  a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers  and  a  ride  on  a 
rail.47  Though  actually  only  sporadically  practiced,  the 
advocacy  of  this  indecency  was  widespread  in  perfectionist 
circles.  Its  roots  were  planted  in  the  prevalent  notion 
that  the  "  saints  "  had  advanced  beyond  the  legalities  of 
the  worldly  order,  and  that  it  behooved  them  to  be  putting 
the  freedom  of  the  resurrection  life  into  practice. 

The  perfectionism  of  which  this  deplorable  practice  was 
one  of  the  fruits  was  pervasive,  and  everywhere  it  went  it 
worked  destruction.  It  was  intensely  individualistic  in 
its  temper  and  operated  accordingly  as  a  disintegrating 
force  in  the  church  organizations  into  which  it  found  en- 
trance. This  effect  was  increased  by  its  affiliation  with  a 
powerful  unionistic  movement  which  was  vexing  the 
churches  of  this  region.  Like  other  unionistic  movements, 
this  one  also  was  much  more  effective  for  tearing  down  the 
existing  organizations  which   stood   in   its  way,  than   for 


54  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

realizing  its  own  professed  Utopian  ends.48  At  all  events 
ruin  marked  the  pathway  along  which  the  combined  per- 
fectionist-unionist forces  moved.  Here  is  a  typical  notice: 
"  Rev.  A.  Hale  from  the  Black  River  Association  distracted 
the  church  with  perfectionism,  and  Rev.  Luther  Myrick 
with  unionism.  Twenty  male  members  broke  away  from 
the  church  at  one  time  as  perfectionists."  49  There  was  an 
active  organization,  vigorously  at  work  among  the 
churches,  calling  itself  "  The  Central  Evangelical  Associa- 
tion of  New  York,"  which  consisted,  as  Hotchkin  tells 
us,50  just  of  "  a  body  of  Perfectionists  and  Unionists."  The 
Synod  of  Geneva  at  its  meeting  in  October,  1835,  warned 
the  ministers  and  churches  under  its  charge  against  it, 
because,  as  it  said,  "  it  does  not  sustain  the  reputation  of 
an  orthodox  body,"  and  "  the  course  of  proceedings  adopted 
by  most  of  its  ministers  is  calculated  to  divide,  corrupt, 
and  distract  the  churches."  The  Synod  therefore  declared 
that  it  "  deemed  it  irregular  for  any  minister  or  church  in 
our  connection  to  admit  the  ministers  of  said  Association 
to  their  pulpits,  or  in  any  way  to  recognize  them,  or  the 
churches  organized  by  them  as  in  regular  standing." 51 
Such  a  deliverance  was  necessarily  a  mere  hrutum  fulmen. 
Even  had  it  taken  a  more  authoritative  form,  it  was  lock- 
ing the  door  after  the  horse  had  been  stolen.  Nor  is  it 
easy  in  any  event  to  see  how  the  closing  of  Presbyterian 
pulpits  to  perfectionist  agitators  could  have  been  expected 
to  protect  the  people  from  the  flames  of  wild  religious 
excitement  flaring  up  hotly  in  churches  of  other  connections 
half  a  block  away.  The  communities  were  small,  and  the 
people  therefore  in  close  contact  and  intimate  intercourse 
with  one  another;  the  religious  excitement  that  was  raging 
was  the  property  of  no  one  denomination,  but  pervaded 
all;  it  was  the  professed  object  of  one  of  the  most  active 
organizations  engaged  in  fostering  it  —  and  the  actual 
effect  of  many  with  no  official  connection  with  that  organi- 
zation —  to  obliterate  all  dividing  lines  and  to  reduce  the 
whole  Christian  body  to  an  indiscriminate  mass  of  fanat- 
icism. 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists  v  55 

Certainly  perfectionists  swarmed  over  the  land,  drawing 
from  all  churches,  forming  none.  No  doubt  the  ever-pres- 
ent fact  of  Wesleyan  perfectionism  lay  in  the  background 
and  supplied  everywhere  a  starting-point  and  everywhere 
gave  a  certain  dignity  and  stability  to  the  movement.  A 
number  of  the  perfectionist  leaders  were  of  Methodist 
origin.52  But  the  most  effective  forces  in  the  production 
of  the  prevalent  perfectionism  were  derived  from  quite 
different  quarters,  particularly  from  the  Pelagianizing 
theories  of  the  will  emanating  from  New  Haven.53  The 
perfectionism  actually  developed  54  ran,  however,  in  point 
of  fact,  into  mystical  molds.  "  These  perfectionists,"  as 
a  contemporary  writer  55  very  fairly  puts  it,  "  believe  that 
they  have  the  inward  Christ  —  can  do  no  wrong  —  that  to 
the  pure  all  things  are  pure  —  that  Christ  is  responsible 
for  all  they  do  —  and  other  such  blasphemous  absurdities." 
Their  chief  or,  at  least,  their  most  obvious,  characteristic 
accordingly  was  less  correctness  in  conduct  than  freedom 
in  the  Spirit.  And  this  in  fact  constituted  their  main  at- 
traction to  the  populace.  J.  H.  Noyes  fully  recognizes  56 
that  "  some  doubtless  joined  the  standard  of  Perfectionism, 
not  because  they  loved  holiness,  but  because  they  were 
weary  of  the  restraints  of  the  duty-doing  churches.  Per- 
fectionism presented  them  a  fine  opportunity  of  giving  full 
swing  to  carnality;  and  at  the  same  time,  of  glorying  over 
the  '  servants '  under  law."  Nothing  was  further  from 
their  intention,  of  course,  than  to  submit  themselves  to  the 
restraints  of  organization.  Each  wished  to  be  a  law  to 
himself  —  and  as  far  as  he  could  compass  it,  a  law  also 
to  everybody  else.  They  erected  what  Noyes  calls  "  dis- 
unity " 57  into  a  principle  and  denounced  organization  as 
in  itself  an  evil  —  a  slavery  to  which  free  men  in  the  spirit 
would  not  submit.  "  To  perfectionists  generally,"  writes 
William  A.  Hinds,58 

"  the  idea  of  discipline,  organization,  submission  one  to 
another  was  intolerable.  Were  they  children  of  the 
covenant  that  *  gendereth  to  bondage'?  they  asked  them- 
selves ;  or  were  they  called  to  '  stand  fast  in  the  liberty 


56  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

wherewith  Christ  had  made  them  free'?  Were  they  not 
living  in  the  very  days  foretold  by  the  prophets  wheD  all 
were  '  to  know  the  Lord  from  the  least  unto  the  greatest/ 
and  when  no  one  '  should  teach  his  neighbor  or  his  brother, 
saying  Know  the  Lord7?  'Perfectionists,'  said  the  elo- 
quent James  Boyle,  '  stand  as  independent  of  each  other, 
as  they  do  of  any  anti-Christian  churches  —  they  will  not 
be  taught  by  each  other,  as  they  are  all  taught  of  God,  nor 
will  they  acknowledge  any  man  as  a  leader  or  chief  or 
anything  of  the  kind.'  " 

Such  extreme  individualism  as  is  here  announced  cannot 
really  maintain  itself  in  practice.  The  perfectionists,  too, 
of  course  found  leaders  and  showed  sufficient  coherence  to 
hold  conventions  at  which  a  common  platform  was  pro- 
claimed and  joint  undertakings  inaugurated.  Even  centers 
of  activity  were  formed  from  which  perfectionist  influ- 
ences radiated  after  a  fashion  which  suggested  at  least 
the  beginnings  of  institutional  organization.  One  of  the 
earliest  of  them  was  established  at  the  little  cotton-mill 
village  of  Manlius,  where  the  little  Presbyterian  Church 
(Manlius  Center)  was  stamped  out.  Hiram  Sheldon  was 
recognized  by  the  Manlius  perfectionists  as  their  leader 
and  expositor,  but  there  were  associated  with  him  such 
men  as  Jarvis  Rider,  Martin  P.  Sweet,  and  Erasmus  Stone. 
In  this  coterie  originated  most  of  the  extravagances  which 
characterized  the  perfectionist  movement.  "  At  Manlius," 
says  Dixon,59  "  the  chosen  took  upon  themselves  the  name 
of  '  Saints.'  Here  they  announced  their  separation  from 
the  world.  Here  they  began  to  debate  whether  the  old 
marriage  vows  would  or  would  not  be  binding  in  the  new 
heaven  and  the  new  earth."  It  was  Albany,  however, 
which  became  the  real  distributing  center  of  the  movement 
at  least  for  the  East ;  and  the  house  of  the  Misses  Annesley 
there  became  the  center  of  the  center.60  Thence  mission- 
aries proceeded  into  New  England  and  groups  of  perfec- 
tionists were  established  here  and  there  —  at  Southampton, 
Brim  field,  New  Haven.61  At  Albany,  of  course,  the  same 
ruin  was  wrought  as  elsewhere:  the  churches  were  greatly 
troubled.   The  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church,  E.  N.  Kirk's,  was 


L921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists  "  r>7 

required  to  put  into  action  extensive  disciplinary  proceed- 
ings;62 and  even  the  classroom  of  the  little  theological 
seminary  which  E.  N.  Kirk  had  established  was  invaded 
by  the  fanaticism.  M  We  hear  of  its  being  carried  from 
this  center  as  far  as  the  extreme  western  border  of  frontier 
Wisconsin.  64 

NOTES 

'Scripture  Doctrine  of  Christian  Perfection  (1839),  ed.  7,  1844, 
pp.  70  ff . ;  cf .  Autobiography,  Intellectual,  Moral  and  Spiritual 
(1882),  pp.  373  f.,  where  the  antinomianism  of  the  "Perfectionists" 
is  exhibited.  C.  G.  Finney  (Lectures  on  Systematic  Theology 
[1847],  vol.  ii.  p.  166)  speaks  of  the  "Perfectionists,"  as  "the 
sect  called  Antinomian  Perfectionists,"  and  (Memoirs  [1876], 
p.  341)  describes  them  as  a  body  which  taught  "Christian  per- 
fection in  the  Antinomian  sense  of  the  term";  cf.  Lectures  to 
Professing  Christians  (1837),  1880,  p.  358.  Henry  Cowles  (The 
Holiness  of  Christians  [1840],  pp.  9  ff.)  separates  himself  de- 
cisively from  "  Antinomian  perfectionism." 

2  The  Higher  Christian  Life  (1859),  pp.  64  ff.  Cf.  Mrs.  Board- 
man's  Life  and  Labors  of  the  Rev.  W.  E.  Boardman  (1887),  pp.  52, 
58,  135,  170. 

3  The  Oxford  Dictionary  includes  this  special  sense  also  in  the 
definition  of  "Perfectionism";  but  not  the  Century,  nor  the 
Standard,  nor  Webster,  nor  Worcester. 

4  He  adds  at  the  end  of  the  article  that  the  Princeites  have 
some  affinities  with  this  sect.  For  the  Princeites,  see  the  article 
"  Agapemone  "  in  Hastings's  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 
with  its  bibliography;  W.  H.  Dixon,  Spiritual  Wives  (1868),  vol.  i. 
pp,  226  ff.;  and  a  series  of  articles  in  The  British  Weekly,  begin- 
ning in  the  number  for  March  22,  1889  (vol.  v.  p.  125). 

5  So  say  Otto  Zockler  in  Herzog-Hauck  (ed.  3,  vol  xv.  p.  130; 
cf.  the  entry  in  The  New  Schaff-Herzog),  and  W.  Kohler  in  Schiele 
und  Zcharnack   (vol.  iv.  p.  1356). 

6  Sermons  on  Revivals  (1841),  p.  48.  John  Breckinridge  (The 
Biblical  Repertory,  Oct.  1832,  p.  460)  reverses  the  emphasis:  "It 
is  the  divine  influence  upon  the  mass  —  the  popular  and  social 
application  of  religion.  It  is  the  Spirit  of  God  awakening,  at  the 
same  time,  to  holy  love,  and  harmonious  action,  the  whole  body 
of  Christians  in  a  particular  place.  .  .  .  When  the  real  spiritual 
church  among  a  people  experiences  this  deep  and  simultaneous 
renovation,  it  is  most  properly  styled  a  revival  of  religion.  .  .  . 
As  an  inseparable  concomitant  of  a  revival  of  religion  among  a 
people,  is  the  simultaneous  conviction  and  conversion  of  many  sin- 


58  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

tiers."  Charles  G.  Finney  (Lectures  on  Revivals  of  Religion 
[ed.  2,  1835],  p.  437),  says:  "It  is  just  as  indispensable  in  promot- 
ing a  revival,  to  preach  to  the  church,  and  make  them  grow  in 
grace,  as  it  is  to  preach  to  sinners  and  make  them  submit  to 
God." 

7  Letter  (March  9,  1832),  printed  in  W.  B.  Sprague,  Lectures  on 
Revivals  of  Religion  (1833),  ed.  2,  1850,  pp.  229-235.  C.  G.  Finney 
was  quite  aware  that  "  excitement "  had  no  converting  effects. 
He  chides  people  for  supposing  that  when  the  excitement,  with 
which  revivals  regularly  began  in  his  practice,  subsided  "  the  re- 
vival is  on  the  decline,"  — "  when,  in  fact,"  he  says,  "  with  much 
less  excited  emotion,  there  may  be  vastly  more  real  religion  in  the 
community"  (Views  of  Sanctification  [1840],  p.  19).  He  delib- 
erately used  excitement  as  an  advertising  agency  (Lectures  on 
Revivals  of  Religion  [1835],  Lect.  XIV.;  cf.  the  caustic  criticisms  of 
Albert  B.  Dod  in  The  Biblical  Repertory,  Oct.  1835,  pp.  632  ff.). 
"  It  seems  sometimes  to  be  indispensable,"  he  remarks  in  the 
Views  of  Sanctification  (p.  19),  "that  a  high  degree  of  excitement 
should  prevail  for  a  time,  to  arrest  public  and  individual  atten- 
tion, and  to  draw  people  off  from  other  pursuits  to  attend  to  the 
concerns  of  their  souls."  But  so  far  from  beneficial  to  the  re- 
ligious life  is  this  excitement  in  itself,  that  if  long  continued,  it 
would  be  destructive  even  to  mental  sanity :  "  the  high  degree 
of  excitement  which  is  sometimes  witnessed  in  revivals  of  re- 
ligion, must  necessarily  be  short,  or  the  people  must  become  de- 
ranged." The  revival  does  not  consist  in  this  state  of  exalted 
emotion,  but  "  in  conformity  of  the  human  will  to  the  law  of 
God."  Finney  repeats  all  this  in  his  Systematic  Theology  (ed.  2, 
1851),  p.  170. 

SP.  11. 

9  hoc.  cit.  Compare  the  remarkable  testimony  of  the  General 
Association  of  Congregational  Churches  in  Connecticut  in  1836 
against  itinerant  lecturers  assuming  to  instruct  the  people  over 
whom  they  had  not  been  called  to  be  overseers,  and  itinerant 
evangelists  rousing  among  them  "  blind  excitement "  (Minutes 
[1836],  pp.  8,  20). 

10  Sprague,  as  cited,  p.  282.  Lyman  Beecher,  in  his  famous 
letter  of  Jan.  1827,  develops  the  idea.  "  The  importance  of  the 
soul  and  of  eternity  is  such,"  says  he,  "  as  that  good  men  in  a  re- 
vival are  apt  to  feel  no  matter  what  is  said  or  done,  provided 
sinners  are  awakened  and  saved.  But  it  ought  to  be  remembered, 
that  though  the  immediate  result  of  some  courses  of  conduct  may 
be  the  salvation  of  some  souls,  the  general  and  more  abiding  result 
may  be  the  ruin  of  a  thousand  souls,  destroyed  by  this  conduct, 
to  one  saved  by  it;  and  destroyed  by  it,  as  instrumentally,  in  the 
direct  and  proper  sense  of  the  term,  as  any  are  saved  by  it." 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists''  59 

"Atlantic  Monthly,  Oct.  1883,  pp.  487-497. 

12  John  Bache  McMaster  (A  History  of  the  American  People, 
vol.  v.  pp.  109,  120)  points  out  that  the  Morgan  excitement  was 
limited  to  "  the  New  England  belt  of  emigration."  "  The  whole 
New  England  belt  from  Boston  to  Buffalo  fairly  teemed  with  anti- 
masonic  newspapers."     This  is  a  typical  instance. 

13  Frederick  Morgan  Davenport,  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious 
Revivals   (1905),  pp.  183  ff. 

14  As  to  Mormonism,  John  Humphrey  Noyes  himself  (Dixon's 
Spiritual  Wives,  vol.  ii.  p.  180),  speaking  of  these  revival  ex- 
citements, says:  "Mormonism,  doubtless,  came  out  of  the  same 
fertile  soil.  Joe  Smith  began  his  career  in  Central  New  York, 
among  a  population  that  was  fermenting  with  the  hope  of  the 
Millennium,  and  at  a  time  when  the  great  National  Revival  was 
going  forth  in  its  strength."  Noyes  was  himself  a  product  of  this 
"  great  National  Revival."  Similarly,  D.  L.  Leonard,  writing  the 
history  of  the  fads  and  fanaticism  of  the  time,  says  of  Smith,  that 
"  in  him  were  embodied  the  grossest  type  of  Americanism  and 
the  most  earthly  and  irrational  impulses  resulting  from  the  in- 
tense revival  fervor  then  prevalent"  (The  Story  of  Oberlin  [1898J, 
p.  118). 

15  Davenport,  as  cited,  p.  184. 

16  Evans'  Mills  is  called  by  Finney  himself  "  a  burnt  district." 
"  I  found  that  region  of  the  country,"  he  writes  in  his  Memoirs 
(1876,  p.  78),  "what,  in  the  western  phrase,  would  be  called,  'a 
burnt  district.'  There  had  been,  a  few  years  previously,  a  wild 
excitement  passing  through  that  region,  which  they  called  a  re- 
vival of  religion,  but  which  turned  out  to  be  spurious.  I  can  give 
no  account  of  it  except  what  I  heard  from  Christian  people  and 
others.  It  was  reported  as  having  been  a  very  extravagant  ex- 
citement; and  resulted  in  a  reaction  so  extensive  and  profound, 
as  to  leave  the  impression  on  many  minds  that  religion  was  a 
mere  delusion." 

17  The  same  figure  of  a  "  burnt  district "  is  spontaneously  used 
here  too,  to  describe  the  effect  of  these  later  revivals.  "  Look 
at  the  present  condition  of  the  churches  of  western  New  York, 
which  have  become  in  truth  a  people  scattered  and  peeled,"  writes 
William  L.  Stone  (Matthias  and  His  Impostures  [1835],  pp.  314  ff.). 
"  The  time  has  not  come  to  write  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the 
past  ten  years.  And  yet  somebody  should  chronicle  the  facts 
now,  lest  in  after  times  the  truth,  however  correctly  it  may  be 
preserved  by  tradition,  should  not  be  believed.  .  .  .  The  writer 
entertains  no  doubt  that  many  true  conversions  have  occurred 
under  the  system  to  which  he  is  referring.  But  as  with  the 
ground  over  which  the  lightning  has  gone,  scorching  and  wither- 
ing every  green  thing,  years  may  pass  away  before  the  arid  waste 


60  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

of  the  church  will  be  grown  over  by  the  living  herbage."  This 
sad  result  of  their  labors  was  not  hidden  from  Finney  himself  and 
his  coadjutors  in  the  fomenting  of  these  "  revivals  of  excite- 
ment." James  Boyle  writes  to  Finney,  Dec.  25,  1834,  to  the  fol- 
lowing effect.  "  Let  us  look  over  the  fields,  where  you  and  others 
and  myself  have  labored  as  revival  ministers,  and  what  is  now 
their  moral  state?  What  was  their  state  within  three  months 
after  we  left  them?  I  have  visited  and  revisited  many  of  these 
fields,  and  groaned  in  spirit  to  see  the  sad,  frigid,  carnal,  conten- 
tious state  into  which  the  churches  had  fallen  —  and  fallen  very 
soon  after  our  first  departure  from  among  them  "  (Literary  and 
Theological  Review,  March,  1838,  p.  66).  Cf.  what  Asa  Mahan 
says,  below,  Note  28. 

18  Domestic  Manners  of  the  Americans  (1832),  1901,  chaps,  viii. 
and  xv.;  cf.  also  chap.  xix.  The  camp  meeting  at  its  best  is 
described  with  great  vividness  by  Andrew  Reed  in  pp.  183-205  of 
his  and  James  Matheson's  Narrative  of  the  Visit  to  the  American 
Churches,  etc.,  1835.  Ill  and  good  will  count  for  much  in  the  two 
descriptions,  but  not  for  all;  and  Reed  is  not  blind  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  evil  intrinsic  in  the  circumstances  and  methods  of  such 
assemblies.  On  Camp  Meetings,  cf.  S.  C.  Swallow,  Camp  Meet- 
ings: Their  Origin,  History  and  Utility,  also  their  Perversion 
(1878). 

19  As  cited,  p.  69. 

20  Neither  Isaac  Fidler's  Observations  on  Professions,  Litera- 
ture, Manners  and  Emigration,  in  the  United  States  and  Canada, 
made  during  a  Residence  there  in  1832  (1833) — a  book  which 
can  be  described  only  as  flat,  stale,  and  unprofitable,  —  nor  either 
of  Harriet  Martineau's  two  very  informing  books,  Society  in 
America  (1837)  and  Retrospect  of  Western  Travel  (1838),  con- 
tains any  "  reports  of  revivals  of  religion."  Albert  Barnes's 
coupling  of  them  with  Mrs.  Trollope's  volume  as  possible  sources 
of  misinformation  as  to  revivals  is  a  purely  rhetorical  flight. 
Miss  Martineau  does,  however,  tell  us  (Society  in  America,  vol. 
ii.  p.  344),  in  a  few  incidental  words,  what  she  thinks  of  "meet- 
ings for  religious  excitement."  "  The  spiritual  dissipations  in- 
dulged in  by  the  religious  world,"  she  pronounces  more  injurious 
to  sound  morals  than  any  public  amusements  indulged  in  under 
modern  conditions.  "  It  is  questionable,"  she  then  adds,  "  whether 
even  gross  licentiousness  is  not  at  least  equally  encouraged  by 
the  excitement  of  passionate  religious  emotions,  separate  from 
action:  and  it  is  certain  that  small  spiritual  vices,  pride,  selfish- 
ness, tyranny  and  superstition,  spring  up  luxuriantly  in  the  hotbed 
of  religious  meetings."  On  the  large  literature  of  British  criti- 
pism  of  American  ways  which  sprang  up  after  the  War  of  1812 
and  raged  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  see  The  Cambridge  History 


11)21]  Noyea  and  his  "  Bible  Communists  "  61 

of  American  Literature,  vol.  i.  (1917)  pp.  205  ff.,  with  the  accom- 
panying Bibliography,  pp.  468  ff. 

21  A  narrative  of  the  Visit  to  the  American  Churches  by  the 
Delegation  from  the  Congregational  Union  of  England  and  Wales, 
by  Andrew  Reed,  D.D.,  and  James  Matheson,  D.D.,  1835,  vol.  ii. 
pp.  7-50.  An  admirable  review  of  this  book  by  Charles  Hodge, 
from  the  religious  and  theological  point  of  view,  will  be  found  in 
The  Biblical  Repertory,  Oct.  1835,  pp.  598  ff.;  and  it  is  well  re- 
viewed, from  the  general  literary  point  of  view,  by  W.  B.  O. 
Peabody,  in  The  North  American  Review  for  1835,  pp.  489  ff. 

--'  A  more  judicious  or  generally  sympathetic  account  of  the 
revivals  centering  in  1831  could  scarcely  be  found  than  that  given 
by  Lyman  H.  Atwater  in  his  article  on  "  Revivals  of  the  Century," 
The  Presbyterian  Quarterly  and  Princeton  Review,  vol.  v.  (1876) 
pp.  703  ff.  And  Charles  Hodge  in  his  review  of  Reed  and  Mathe- 
son's  book  (Biblical  Repertory,  Oct.  1835,  pp.  598  ff.),  deals  with 
the  whole  matter  most  judiciously. 

23  P.  35. 

24  P.  43. 

25  When  Charles  Hodge  (as  cited,  pp.  608  ff.)  traverses  some  of 
these  judgments,  he  does  so  only  on  the  understanding  that  they 
apply  to  revivals  as  such.  As  to  the  special  revival  movements 
of  western  and  central  New  York  of  this  period  he  is  of  the 
same  mind  with  Reed. 

20  A  History  of  the  Purchase  and  Settlement  of  Western  New 
York,  and  of  the  Rise,  Progress  and  Present  State  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  that  Section   (1848),  pp.  159  ff. 

"The  Crowd  (E.  T.  1896),  p.  162;  cf.  p.  58:  "The  art  of  appeal- 
ing to  crowds  is  no  doubt  of  an  inferior  order,  but  it  demands 
quite  special  aptitudes."  A  correction  of  the  over-exploitation  of 
"  crowd-psychology "  (as  in  Davenport)  may  be  found  in  Graham 
Wallas,  The  Great  Society  (1920),  pp.  115-138.  On  the  general 
subject  of  "  Crowd  Psychology  and  Revivals,"  see  J.  B.  Pratt, 
The  Religious   Consciousness   (1920),  pp.  165-194. 

23  There  is  no  more  distressing  description  of  the  evil  effects 
of  these  revivals  on  people,  pastors,  and  evangelists,  than  that  in 
Asa  Mahan's  Autobiography  (1882),  pp.  227  ff.  The  people  were 
left  like  a  dead  coal  which  could  not  be  reignited.  The  pastors 
were  shorn  of  all  spiritual  power.  Of  the  evangelists  he  writes 
as  follows: — "It  is  with  pain  that  I  refer  to  the  evangelists  of 
that  era.  Among  them  all  —  and  I  was  personally  acquainted 
with  nearly  every  one  of  them  —  I  cannot  recall  a  single  man, 
brother  Finney  and  father  Nash  excepted,  who  did  not  after  a  few 
years  lose  his  unction,  and  become  equally  disqualified  for  the 
office  of  evangelist  and  that  of  pastor.  The  individual  who,  next 
to  Mr.  Finney,  had  the  widest  popularity  and  influence,  when  in 


62  Bibllotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

the  meridian  of  life,  left  the  ministry,  and  lived  and  died  a 
banker,  manifesting  no  disposition  to  preach,  the  gospel  to  any- 
class  of  men.  The  individual  who  probably  stood  next  to  him, 
after  a  series  of  years  of  most  successful  labor,  retired  into  the 
far  Western  States,  and  I  could  never  learn  even  his  where- 
abouts. One  who  was  very  constantly  with  Mr.  Finney,  and 
labored,  for  a  time,  as  his  successor  in  the  Chatham  Street 
Chapel,  in  the  City  of  New  York,  abandoned  wholly  the  Evan- 
gelical faith.  Another,  a  preacher  of  great  power,  first  joined 
Noyes,  the  Free  Lover,  and  then  the  infidel  abolitionists  of  the 
Garrison  school.  What  finally  became  of  him  I  never  learned.  I 
refer  to  but  one  other  case  from  the  painful  catalogue  before  me. 
This  individual  probably  had  as  great  power  over  his  audiences 
as  any  that  can  be  named,  and  multitudes  were  no  doubt  won  to 
Christ  through  his  influence.  .  .  .  The  last  time  I  met  that 
evangelist  ...  he  told  us  .  .  .  that  he  had  just  left  a  great 
revival  and  was  on  his  way  for  absolutely  necessary  rest  to  visit 
his  friends  in  Michigan.  We  afterwards  learned  he  was  going 
as  a  fugitive  from  the  legal  liabilities  of  his  vices,  and  he  sub- 
sequently, I  believe,  led  a  kind  of  vagabond  life."  —  The  first- 
mentioned  of  these  evangelists  we  take  to  be  Jedediah  Burchard, 
a  most  ambiguous  figure.  The  plain  facts  about  him  may  be  read 
in  Hotchkin,  as  cited,  p.  170,  while  the  best  that  can  be  said  of 
him  is  said  by  P.  H.  Fowler,  Historical  Sketch  of  Presbyterian- 
ism  within  the  Bounds  of  the  Synod  of  Central  New  York  (1877), 
p.  236.  W.  F.  P.  Noble's  account  (A  Century  of  Gospel  Work, 
1876,  pp.  401  ff.)  is  mere  indiscriminate  adulation.  Cf.  Finney, 
Memoirs,  pp.  388  f.  A  very  curious  picture  is  given  of  Burchard 
at  work  in  a  little  book  published  at  Burlington,  Vermont,  in  1836, 
bearing  the  title:  Sermons,  Addresses  and  Exhortations  by  Rev. 
Jedediah  Burchard,  with  an  Appendix,  by  C.  .C.  Eastman  (12mo, 
pp.  vi,  120),  a  very  slashing  review  of  which  by  Leonard  Withing- 
ton  will  be  found  in  The  Literary  and  Theological  Review  for 
June,  1836,  pp.  228-236.  The  material  for  the  book  was  obtained 
by  stenographers  working  not  only  without  Burchard's  permission 
but  against  his  violent  opposition.  It  seems  that  an  earlier  pub- 
lication of  similar  character  had  been  made  by  a  Mr.  Streeter  of 
Woodstock.  The  sermons  printed  in  Eastman's  volume,  we  are 
afraid,  would  no  longer  shock;  and  we  wish  to  record  to  Burch- 
ard's credit  that  he  was  no  "  Perfectionist."  To  his  young  con- 
verts he  says:  "You  know  who  the  perfectionists  are.  Strange 
that  there  are  such  beings,  but  it  is  so.  In  the  judgment  of 
charity,  there  are  many  who  are  sincere  in  this  error.  Now,  my 
young  friends,  I  wish  to  guard  you  particularly  against  every- 
thing of  this  land." 

28  A  concurrence  of  witnesses  testifies  to  the  ineffable  vulgarity, 


1921]  Xoycs  and  It  is  ■•  Bible  Communists  ''  63 

fanaticism,  and  unsoundness  of  Littlejohn's  preaching,  as  well 
as  to  the  coarseness  of  his  manners  and  the  impurity  of  his  life. 
Nevertheless,  he  retained  his  connection  with  the  Presbyterian 
Church  until,  tardily,  on  March  18,  1841,  "  he  was  by  the 
Presbytery  of  Angelica,  deposed  from  the  ministerial  office  and 
excommunicated  from  the  Church,  on  account  of  grossly  immoral 
conduct,  practiced  clandestinely  at  various  times  through  a  long 
period"  (Hotchkin,  as  cited,  pp.  171,  172).  Cf.  also  to  the  same 
effect,  P.  H.  Fowler,  as  cited,  pp.  235,  note,  277;  and  the  letter  signed 
"  Wyoming,"  in  The  New  York  Evangelist,  July  27,  1876,  and 
reprinted  thence  in  The  Presbyterian  Quarterly  and  Princeton 
Review,  Oct.  1876,  p.  713,  note.  James  A.  Miller  (The  History 
of  the  Presbytery  of  Steuben  [1897],  pp.  15  f.)  draws  on  William 
Waith  (Recollections  of  an  Emigrant's  Family)  for  a  description 
of  Littlejohn.  "  He  was  a  common  laborer,"  says  Waith,  "  but 
was  endowed  with  a  natural  eloquence  which  gave  him  the  com- 
plete mastery  over  any  group  that  he  addressed.  He  would 
collect  a  gang  of  his  fellow  workmen  and  preach  a  funeral  sermon 
over  a  dead  horse  or  dog,  that  would  fill  the  eyes  of  his  hearers 
with  tears.  This  man  professed  conversion  to  Christianity,  and 
began  holding  forth  in  school  houses  or  in  churches  to  which 
pastors  would  admit  him,  and  hearts  were  melted,  and  knees  were 
bent  in  penitence,  to  such  an  extent  that  people  thought  this 
man  '  the  great  power  of  God.'  He  offered  himself  as  a  candidate 
for  the  ministry;  but  the  older  heads  of  the  Presbytery  were 
unyielding  in  their  opposition  to  his  licensure.  Littlejohn,  how- 
ever, went  right  on  with  his  fervent  appeals,  and  converts  were 
multiplied  within  the  parishes  of  the  very  pastors  that  opposed 
him.  .  .  .  The  pressure  upon  the  Presbytery  became  so  strong 
that  any  longer  to  refuse  licensure  appeared  like  fighting  against 
God."  Miller  himself  continues  the  story:  "In  1830  he  was 
licensed.  In  1833  a  day  was  set  for  his  ordination  as  an  evan- 
gelist. When  the  day  came  there  were  charges  against  him  of 
doctrinal  unsoundness  and  imprudent  conduct,  and  his  ordination 
was  postponed.  A  month  later  Geneva  Synod  criticized  the 
method  of  his  licensure  and  directed  Presbytery  to  reexamine 
him.  Instead  of  reexamining  him  for  licensure,  Presbytery  or- 
dained him.  This  action  Genesee  Synod  censured.  Difficulties 
arose  later  between  Littlejohn  and  his  wife,  but  Presbytery  ex- 
onerated him  from  blame  and  highly  commended  his  work  as  an 
evangelist.  In  1839  there  were  charges  against  his  character. 
Presbytery  appointed  a  committee  to  investigate,  but  in  1840, 
before  that  committee  reported,  made  him  moderator.  About  the 
same  time  Presbytery  refused  a  request  of  Ontario  Presbytery  to 
investigate  charges  against  Littlejohn  —  not  even  recording  the 
charges   on  the   minutes.     The   Synod   of  Genesee  censured  Pres- 


64  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

bytery  very  sharply  for  making  him  moderator  while  charges 
were  pending  against  him,  and  for  passing  over  the  request  of 
Ontario  Presbytery.  After  a  good  many  other  actions,  in  1841 
he  was  cited  to  answer  definite  charges  of  grossly  immoral  con- 
duct. There  was  an  exhaustive  trial  at  Almond  in  March,  1841. 
At  last  Presbytery  saw  him  as  he  was,  and  unanimously  deposed 
him  from  the  ministry  and  excommunicated  him  from  the  church." 
This  assuredly  is  a  case  of  all  is  not  well  that  ends  well. 

30  The  Presbytery  of  Cayuga,  Aug.  1833,  warned  the  churches 
under  its  care  against  employing  Myrick  because  of  the  unsound- 
ness of  his  doctrine  and  the  evil  practical  effects  of  his  preaching. 
It  mentions  that  he  was  at  the  time  under  summons  by  his  Pres- 
bytery (that  of  Oneida)  for  trial.  Similar  action  was  taken  by  the 
Presbytery  of  Onondaga;  and  both  Presbyteries  entered  a  com- 
plaint against  him  to  the  Presbytery  of  Oneida.  Cf.  Hotchkin,  as 
cited,  p.  173;  Fowler,  as  cited,  pp.  137,  278;  and  especially,  James 
Wood,  Facts  and  Observations  concerning  the  Organization  and 
State  of  the  Churches  in  the  Three  Synods  of  Western  New  York, 
etc.,  1837,  pp.  25  f.  Myrick  was  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of 
Oneida  from  1828  to  1844.  The  dealing  of  the  Presbytery  of 
Oneida  with  him  showed  the  same  general  characteristics  which 
marked  the  dealing  of  the  Presbytery  of  Angelica  with  Littlejohn. 
It  must  have  been  quite  clear  from  his  first  appearance  before 
the  Presbytery  in  1825  as  a  candidate  that  he  was  not  a  suitable 
person  to  induct  into  the  ministry.  Yet  the  Presbytery  carried 
him  through  his  trials,  ordained  him  over  a  congregation  with  a 
protesting  minority,  and  when  the  inevitable  charges  were  brought 
before  it,  dawdled  with  them;  and  finally,  when  at  last,  Oct.  24, 
1833,  he  was  found  guilty  of  both  doctrinal  errors  (denying  the 
doctrine  of  Perseverance,  and  asserting  the  doctrine  of  Per- 
fection) and  disorderly  conduct  (disorganizing  churches,  encour- 
aging confusion  in  religious  meetings,  defaming  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  slanderous  and  coarse  language),  removed  the  suspension 
imposed  on  him  on  his  expressing  sorrow  for  nothing  but  his 
"  improper  expressions."  Next  spring  (Feb.  6,  1834)  he  asked  to 
be  dismissed  to  the  Black  River  Association;  but  that  body  would 
not  receive  him;  and  he  thereupon  simply  "withdrew  from  the 
fellowship  of  the  Presbyterian  Church"  (June  24,  1834),  and  his 
name  was  erased  from  the  roll.  He  retained  his  residence  within 
the  bounds  of  the  Presbytery,  a  Congregationalist  in  affiliation, 
and  gave  himself  to  the  propagation  of  his  perfectionist  doctrine. 
"  He  is  the  editor  of  a  paper,"  says  Wood  in  1837,  "  and  by  this 
means  as  well  as  by  his  preaching,  is  promulgating  his  pernicious 
doctrines  —  and  I  regret  to  add,  they  are  embraced  by  a  few  in 
quite  a  number  of  churches,  to  the  great  grief  and  vexation  of 
their   brethren   and    pastors."     "  He   was    an    enthusiast,   probably 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists"  65 

sincere,"  Fowler  sums  up,  "  but  wrought  up  to  the  point  of  de- 
rangement, and  while  gathering  large  assemblies  and  exciting 
them,  his  proper  place  was  the  asylum  rather  than  the  pulpit." 
It  is  worth  noting  that  one  of  his  "  methods  "  was  to  report  (in 
The  Evangelist  or  Western  Recorder)  the  results  of  the  revivals 
carried  on  by  him,  quite  without  regard  to  the  facts. 

31  Of  Boyle,  Hotchkin  (p.  171)  says  that  almost  every  church  in 
wrhich  he  worked,  though  greatly  enlarged  in  its  membership  by 
him,  fell  shortly  into  decay.  He  adds  that  he  "  lost  his  ministe- 
rial character,  was  deposed  from  the  ministry  and  excommunicated 
from  the  church."  He  "came  to  the  Presbytery  of  Oneida"  (as 
Fowler  expresses  it)  "  with  clean  papers  from  the  Methodist 
ministry,"  and  on  those  credentials  was  received  as  a  member  of 
the  Presbytery.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Presbytery  of  Oneida 
from  1827  to  1835  —  never  through  that  period  becoming  a  pastor 
of  a  church.  In  1834  he  was  preaching  for  the  Free  Church  of 
New  Haven,  and  there  imbibed  Perfectionist  doctrines  in  the 
New  Haven  form.  For  these  he  was  arraigned  by  the  Presbytery 
in  the  spring  of  1835  on  the  basis  of  "  common  fame."  The 
charges  as  formulated  by  the  Presbytery  having  been  all  ad- 
mitted by  him,  he  was  suspended  from  the  ministry  April  29, 
1835.  The  erroneous  teachings  thus  confessed  by  him  are  these: 
"  That  under  the  Gospel  men  are  wholly  sinful  or  wholly 
righteous";  "that  there  is  no  security  of  ultimate  salvation  with- 
out perfect  freedom  from  sin " ;  "  that  a  pardon  through  Jesus 
Christ  which  covers  all  past  sin  is  inseparably  connected  with  a 
perfect  and  perpetual  sanctification  of  the  soul";  "that  the  li- 
censing and  ordaining  of  ministers  by  Presbyteries,  Associations, 
and  Councils  is  an  assumption  of  the  high  prerogatives  of  the 
Church."  These  confessed  teachings  include  the  assertion  of  the 
notion  of  what  is  known  as  "  the  simplicity  of  moral  action  " — 
a  man  is  always  either  as  bad  as  he  can  be  or  as  good  as  he  can 
be;  attach  perfection  immediately  to  justification  —  every  saved 
soul  is  perfect;  make  this  perfection  indefectible;  and  assert  what 
J.  H.  Noyes  calls  "  disunionism  "  —  the  absolute  independence  of 
every  minister  of  the  word  of  all  ecclesiastical  authority.  Boyle, 
a  native  of  Lower  Canada,  was  born  and  bred  a  Roman  Catholic 
and  after  his  career  as  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  and  Perfectionist, 
came  into  connection  with  Gamaliel  Bailey,  Jr.,  and  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  and  ran  a  notable  course  as  Anti-Slavery  Agitator. 
We  find  Garrison  already  printing  in  The  Liberator  of  March  23, 
1838,  a  letter  from  Boyle,  which  Garrison  describes  as  "  one  of 
the  most  powerful  epistles  ever  written  by  man,"  on  "  Clerical 
Appeal,  Sectarianism  and  True  Holiness,"  and  another  the  next 
year  "  On  Non-Resistance,  —  The  '  Powers  that  Be,'  Civil,  Judicial 
and  Ecclesiastical  —  Holiness."  The  former  was  dated  from 
Vol.  LXXVIII.     No.  309.     5 


66  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan.' 

Rome,  Ohio,  the  latter  from  Cincinnati,  where  Boyle  was  already- 
working  on  Bailey's  Philanthropist.  In  July,  1839,  he  became 
lecturing  and  financial  agent  of  the  Ohio  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
and  we  are  told  that  Oliver  Johnson  said  of  him  that  "  probably 
there  was  no  man  living  whose  religious  views  were  more  in 
harmony  with  Mr.  Garrison's."  For  these  facts  see  William  Lloyd 
Garrison:  The  Story  of  His  Life  Told  by  his  Children,  vol.  ii. 
(1885)  pp.  286-287.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  what  Noyes 
called  his  "  disunionism "  became  in  fact  the  fundamental  note 
of  his  thinking. 

32  P.  315. 

33  P.  470. 

34  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Kentucky,  etc.,  1847, 
pp.  163-165.  David  Ramsay  (History  of  South  Carolina,  1676-1808 
[1808,  1809],  vol.  ii.  p.  36,  note)  says  temperately :— "  The  effect 
of  these  camp-meetings  was  of  a  mixed  nature.  They  were  doubt- 
less attended  for  improper  purposes  by  a  few  licentious  persons, 
and  by  others  with  a  view  of  obtaining  a  handle  to  ridicule  all 
religion.  .  .  .  The  free  intercourse  of  all  ages  and  sexes  under 
cover  of  the  night  and  the  woods  was  not  without  its  temptations." 

35  New  America  (ed.  4,  1867),  vol.  ii.  p.  146.  The  phrase  occurs 
in  a  vivid  description,  which  is  also  an  arraignment,  of  the  camp 
meeting,  sensationally  written,  but  not  essentially  untrue  to  fact. 
"  In  the  revival  camp,"  he  says,  "  men  quarrel  and  fight,  and  make 
love  to  their  neighbors'  wives."  " '  I  like  to  hear  of  a  revival,' 
said  to  me  a  lawyer  of  Indianapolis,  '  it  brings  me  a  crop  of 
cases.'  " 

36  Davidson,  as  cited,  pp.  163  f . 

37  Theodor  Schroeder  has  made  himself  the  persistent  advocate 
of  this  notion:  cf.  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology,  vols.  iii. 
(1908)  pp.  16  ff.;  v.  (1912)  pp.  394  ff.;  vi.  (1913)  pp.  95  ff.;  vii. 
(1914)  pp.  23  ff.  E.  D.  Starbuck  says:  "In  a  certain  sense  the  re- 
ligious life  is  an  irradiation  of  the  reproductive  instinct"  (Psy- 
chology of  Religion  [1900],  p.  401).  Cf.  also  G.  Stanley  Hall, 
Adolescence,  vol.  ii.  p.  301;  J.  B.  Pratt,  as  cited,  pp.  108  ff. 

3S  Davenport,  as  cited,  p.  81,  cf.  p.  292.  S.  Baring-Gould  (Freaks 
of  Fanaticism  [1891],  p.  268)  says  extremely:  "The  religious  pas- 
sion verges  so  closely  on  the  sexual  passion,  that  a  slight  additional 
pressure  given  to  it  bursts  the  partition,  and  both  are  confused  in 
a  frenzy  of  religious  debauch."  This  was  already  the  theory  of 
John  Humphrey  Noyes :  "  The  tendency  of  religious  unity,"  says 
he  (Bible  Communism  [1853],  p.  31),  "to  flow  into  the  channel  of 
amativeness,  manifests  itself  in  revivals  and  in  all  the  higher 
forms  of  spiritualism.  Marriages  and  illegitimate  amours  usually 
follow  religious  excitements.  Almost  every  spiritual  sect  has 
been  troubled  by  amative  tendencies.     These  facts  are  not  to  be 


1921]  Noyea  and  his  "Bible  Communists  "  07 

treated  as  unaccountable  irregularities,  but  as  expressions  of  a 
law  of  human  nature.  Amativeness  is  in  fact  .  .  .  the  first  and 
most  natural  channel  of  religious  love."  "  Religious  love  is  very 
near  neighbor  to  sexual  love,"  says  he  again,  "  and  they  always 
get  mixed  in  the  intimacies  and  social  excitements  of  Revivals." 
"  The  next  thing  a  man  wants,"  he  adds  less  appositely,  "  after  he 
has  found  the  salvation  of  his  soul,  is  to  find  his  Eve  and  his 
Paradise.  Hence  these  wild  experiments  and  terrible  disasters  " 
(W.  H.  Dixon,  Spiritual  Wives  [ed.  2,  1868],  p.  176).  "  It  is  a  very 
sad  fact,"  Dixon  himself  adds  to  this  citation  (p.  10),  "which 
shows  in  what  darkness  men  may  grope  and  pine  in  this  wicked 
world,  that  when  these  Perfect  Saints  were  able  to  look  about 
them  in  the  new  freedom  of  Gospel  light,  hardly  one  of  the  lead- 
ing men  among  them  could  find  an  Eden  at  home,  or  an  Eve  in  his 
lawful  wife." 

39  As  cited,  p.  14. 

40  As  cited,  p.  28. 

41  Dixon's    Spiritual   Wives,   vol.   ii.   pp.    176  f. 

42  This  materialistic  mode  of  conceiving  God  appears  to  have 
been  habitual  with  Noyes.  Commenting  with  much  commenda- 
tion on  Buchanan's  experiments  in  Animal  Magnetism,  —  in  which 
he  sees  effects  not  differing  in  kind  from  Christ's  miracles  —  he 
says  (The  Berean,  p.  77) :  "  Perhaps  in  the  progress  of  his  inves- 
tigation, Dr.  Buchanan  will  find  means  to  increase  his  nervous 
powers,  either  by  self-training,  or  availing  himself  of  the  power 
of  others.  But  he  will  never  approach  equality  with  Christ,  as  a 
practical  neurologist,  till  he  establishes  communication  with  God, 
the  great  source  of  vital  energy.  ...  So  long  as  mere  human 
life  is  the  fountain  of  magnetic  influence,  its  effects  will  only  be 
proportioned  to  the  weakness  of  human  nature."  God  is  a  physi- 
cal force  which  may  conceivably  be  tapped  and  drawn  upon  by 
the  practitioner  of  Animal  Magnetism;  and  which,  set  at  work  in 
the  world,  will  move  blindly  to  this  or  that  effect. 

43  For  a  brief  notice  of  Cochrane's  career,  see  W.  L.  Stone, 
Matthias  and  His  Impostures,  etc.,  1835,  pp.  296  ff.  (repeated  in 
part  in  H.  Eastman,  Noyesism  Unveiled  [1849],  p.  400).  The 
allusion  in  J.  Brockway's  A  Delineation  of  the  Characteristic 
Features  of  a  Revival  of  Religion  in  Troy,  in  1826  and  1827  (1827), 
p.  59,  seems  to  be  to  something  in  general  similar: — "A  sect 
started  up,  two  or  three  years  ago  in  the  eastern  part  of  Ver- 
mont, putting  defiance  to  all  the  laws  of  modesty  and  decency, 
breaking  down  all  distinctions  of  sex;  they  were  too  pure  to  be 
defiled  by  any  intercourse.  The  civil  law  was  stretched  out  to 
put  a  stop  to  this  outrage  on  humanity;  and  the  cry  was  reiter- 
ated — '  persecution,'  '  persecution.'  "  This  was  written  too  early 
to  refer  to  Noyes  and  his  Putney  community. 


68  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

44  The  story  of  Matthias  is  told  at  length  and  very  temperately 
by  W.  L.  Stone,  Matthias  and  His  Impostures,  etc.  (1835).  See 
also  the  favorable  review  and  abstract  of  Stone's  book  by  Edward 
Everett,  North  American  Review,  vol.  xl.  (1835)  pp.  307  ff.  It  is 
told  from  a  different  point  of  view  by  G.  B.  Vale,  Fanaticism,  its 
Sources  and  Influence  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Matthias,  etc.,  a 
reply  to  W.  L.  Stone  (1835),  and  more  recently  by  Theodor  Schroe- 
der  in  The  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology,  1913,  pp.  59-65. 
Schroeder  attaches  a  brief  bibliography.  There  are  very  short 
notices  of  Matthias  in  Drake's  Dictionary  of  American  Biography, 
and  McClintock  and  Strong's  Encyclopaedia  of  Religious  Knowledge, 
sub  nom.  "  The  imposture  of  Matthias  and  the  perfectionism  of 
New  Haven,"  says  Albert  B.  Dod  (The  Biblical  Repertory,  Oct. 
1835,  p.  661),  "are  monster  growths  in  different  directions  of  the 
same  monster  trunk "  —  meaning  the  "  revival  of  excitement,"  or 
as  he,  following  Stone,  expresses  it,  "  the  spirit  of  fanaticism  which 
has  transformed  so  many  Christian  communities  in  the  northern 
and  western  parts  of  New  York  and  states  contiguous,  into  places 
of  moral  waste  and  spiritual  desolation." 

45  This  is  the  testimony  of  J.  H.  Noyes  (Dixon's  Spiritual  Wives, 
vol.  ii.  p.  179): — "The  original  theory  of  the  Saints,  both  at  the 
East  and  West,  was  opposed  to  actual  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  as 
'  works  of  the  flesh.'  They  '  bundled,'  it  is  true,  but  only  to  prove 
by  trial  their  power  against  the  flesh;  in  other  words,  their  tri- 
umphant Shakerism.  Dr.  Gridley,  one  of  the  Massachusetts  lead- 
ers, boasted  that  'he  could  carry  a  virgin  in  each  hand,  without 
the  least  stir  of  unholy  passion!  '  At  Brimfield,  Mary  Lincoln  and 
Maria  Brown  visited  Simon  Lovett  in  his  room;  and  they  came  out 
of  that  room  in  the  innocence  of  Shakerism." 

46  See  especially  H.  Achelis,  Virgines  Subintroductae:  Ein  Beitrag 
zu  1  Cor.  7  (1902),  or  his  article  "Agapetae  "  in  Hastings's  Ency- 
clopaedia of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  i.  pp.  177  ff.  Also  Havelock 
Ellis,  Studies  in  the  Psychology  of  Sex,  vol.  vi.  (1910)  pp.  151  ff. 
or  the  abstract  from  him  in  Hastings,  as  cited,  vol.  iii.  p.   487. 

47  The  classical  account  of  the  matter  is  of  course  that  of  W.  H. 
Dixon,  Spiritual  Wives  (ed.  2,  1868),  vol.  ii.  This  account  is  writ- 
ten in  a  sensational  style,  but  in  its  substance  is  good  contempor- 
ary history  from  the  hands  of  eyewitnesses.  J.  H.  Noyes  in  his 
Dixon  and  His  Copyists  (1871),  p.  32,  tells  us  that,  except  chaps, 
vii.,  viii.,  and  xxvi.-xxxi.,  which  are  Dixon's,  the  whole  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  book  was  supplied  by  himself  or  George  Cragin,  i.e.  by 
intimate  actors  and  witnesses  in  the  occurrences  described. 

48  Cf.  P.  H.  Fowler,  as  cited,  pp.  137-138:  "'Unionism'  made 
high  pretensions  to  piety  and  charity,  but  was  bitter  towards  the 
existing  denominations,  and  finally  assailed  them  and  sent  forth 
multitudes   of   extemporized   preachers   to   spit  venom   upon   them, 


1021]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists''  (5!) 

and  to  strike  silently  at  them,  and  the  Presbyteries  stripped  It  of 
Its  disguise  and  exposed  its  ugliness  and  mischievousness." 

"Hotchkin,  as  cited,  p.  314. 

50  P.  313. 

"Hotchkin,  as  cited,  p.  173. 

52  Charles  G-.  Finney,  in  his  Views  of  Sanctification  (1840),  p. 
136,  says:  "  So  far  as  I  can  learn,  the  Methodists  have  been  in 
great  measure  if  not  entirely  exempt  from  the  errors  held  by  mod- 
ern Perfectionists."  He  is  not  in  this,  however,  speaking  of  the 
sources  upon  which  the  Perfectionists  drew  for  their  membership, 
but  of  the  teaching  current  in  the  Methodist  Church  in  contrast 
with  theirs.  He  does,  however,  add  that  "  Perfectionists,  as  a  body, 
and  I  believe  with  very  few  exceptions,  have  arisen  out  of  those 
denominations  that  deny  the  doctrine  of  entire  sanctification,"  — 
and  this  doubtless  was  true  of  the  perfectionists  he  had  in  mind, 
if  taken  as  a  general  fact.     It  was  not,  however,  the  whole  truth. 

53  This  is  fully  argued  and  illustrated  by  Joseph  I.  Foot,  in  "An 
Enquiry  respecting  the  Theological  Origin  of  Perfectionism,  and 
its  Correlative  Branches  of  Fanaticism,"  in  The  Literary  and  Theo- 
logical Review,  March,  1836,  pp.  1-33.  He  declares  that  in  point 
of  fact  the  errors  of  "  the  New  Dispensation  "  are  practically  con- 
fined to  congregations  in  which  "  the  New  Divinity "  had  been 
taught,  laying  the  stress  especially  on  its  assertion  of  human  abil- 
ity and  its  representation  of  regeneration,  as  "  effected  by  '  divine 
moral  suasion,'  "  —  that  is  to  say  on  its  Pelagianism.  "  We  come 
then  to  the  conclusion,"  he  sums  up  (p.  28),  "that  the  system  of 
light  and  motives,  including  its  assumption  respecting  the  human 
will,  or  heart,  is  the  parent  of  perfectionism."  Similarly,  Ebenezer 
H.  Snowden,  writing  in  1837  (The  Baltimore  Literary  and  Relig- 
ious Magazine,  vol.  iii.  [July,  1837]  pp.  310  ff.),  says  of  these  per- 
fectionists of  Western  New  York  that,  °  they  are  the  results  of  the 
doctrine  of  man's  ability  and  the  new  measures,"  and  that,  com- 
pared with  them,  "  the  Methodist  perfectionists  are  very  orthodox." 
He  describes  them  as  mystical  in  doctrine,  antinomian  in  practice, 
and  disintegrating  in  their  relation  to  the  churches.  They  hold 
that  "do  what  they  may  they  cannot  sin, —  yea.  that  it  is  as  im- 
possible for  them  as  for  God  Himself."  They  are  guilty  of  "acts 
of  gross  sensuality  justifying  themselves  on  the  principle  that 
they  can  do  no  wrong."  "  They  consider  ministers  nuisances,  and 
churches  nscJcss,  and  that  they  ought  to  be  torn  down."  Hence 
Samuel  J.  Baird  (A  History  of  the  New  School  [1868],  p.  224), 
says,  speaking  of  Taylorism,  — "  The  system  attained  to  its  log- 
ical results  in  the  perfectionism  which  sprang  up,  broadcast,  as 
an  after-crop,  in  Western  New  York.  ...  If  the  divine  commands 
are  criteria  of  our  ability,  the  words,  '  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect,'  are  an  assurance  that  we  can  be  as 


70  Bibliotheca  Sacra  [Jan. 

perfect  as  God."     Cf.  Lyman  H.  Atwater,  The  Presbyterian  Quar- 
terly and  Princeton  Review,  July,  1877,  pp.  410  ff. 

54  A  good  account  of  their  origin  and  teaching  is  given  by  Joseph 
I.  Foot  in  two  publications,  the  one,  a  separate  pamphlet  entitled 
Discourses  on  Modern  Antinomianism,  commouly  called  Perfec- 
tionism, and  the. other  an  article  in  The  Literary  and  Theological 
Review  for  Dec.  1834,  pp.  554-583,  bearing  the  caption:  "'The  New 
Dispensation,'  or  Modern  Antinomianism,  commonly  called  Perfec- 
tionism." In  the  latter  of  these  he  sums  up  their  doctrine  under 
three  heads:  (1)  "They  do  not  regard  the  moral  law  as  obligatory 
on  believers";  they  "  affirm  that  '  they  have  nothing  to  do  and  have 
already  entered  into  rest.'"  (2)  They  "profess  to  be  personally 
united  to  Christ,  or  to  the  Holy  Spirit;  they  interpret  the  phrase, 
'Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh'  (in  1  Jno.  iv.  2)  as  denoting  'His 
coming  into  their  bodies,  and  being  personally  united  to  them.'" 
(3)  They  "  declare  themselves  '  to  be  perfect,  to  be  as  holy  as  God.'  " 
They  expressed  their  views  as  to  their  relation  to  Christ  by  the 
terms  "  communication,"  or  "  commutation,"  by  which  they  meant 
such  an  exchange  of  character  with  Christ  that  "  we  become  as 
completely  holy  as  He,  and  He  as  completely  sinful  as  we."  An- 
other very  prominent  characteristic  of  their  teaching  was  the  pro- 
fession to  be  so  led  by  the  Spirit  as  to  supersede  all  dependence  on 
the  Word.  "  I  have  never  known  or  heard  of  a  disciple  of  the  '  New 
Dispensation,'"  says  Foot  (p.  565),  "who  did  not  profess  either  to 
receive  immediate  revelations,  or  to  be  personally  united  to  Deity. 
In  the  latter  case,  though  there  evidently  can  be  no  need  of  such 
revelations,  they  are  frequently  claimed.  .  .  .  They  regard  their  own 
sayings  and  epistles  as  of  equal  authority  with  those  of  the  apostles. 
They  even  declare,  that  the  apostolic  writings  pertain  only  to  their 
own  times,  and  are  now  superseded  by  modern  revelations."  Asa 
Mahan  (Scripture  Doctrine  of  Christian  Perfection  [1839],  ed.  7, 
1844,  pp.  70-73)  gives  rather  a  full  account  of  their  teachings. 
"  (1)  Perfectionism  in  its  fundamental  principles,  is  the  abroga- 
tion of  all  law  .  .  .  (2)  In  abrogating  law,  as  a  rule  of  duty,  Perfec- 
tionism abrogates  all  obligation  of  every  kind.  (3)  Perfectionism 
is  a  '  rest '  which  suspends  all  efforts  and  prayer,  even  for  the  sal- 
vation of  the  world.  (4)  Perfectionism  substitutes  the  direct  teach- 
ing of  the  Spirit,  falsely  so  called,  in  the  place  of  the  '  word.'  (5)  Per- 
fectionism surrenders  up  the  soul  to  blind  impulse,  assuming  that 
every  existing  desire  or  impulse  is  caused  by  the  direct  agency  of 
the  Spirit  and  therefore  to  be  justified.  (6)  Perfectionism  abrogates 
the  Sabbath  and  all  the  ordinances  of  the  Gospel,  and,  in  its  legit- 
imate tendencies,  even  marriage  itself.  (7)  Perfectionism  by  ab- 
rogating all  law,  abrogates  all  standards  of  conduct  and  accordingly 
demoralizes  man.  (8)  Perfectionism,  in  short,  in  its  essential  ele- 
ments, is  the  perfection  of  licentiousness."     Compare  the  descrip- 


1921]  Noyes  and  his  "Bible  Communists  "  71 

tion  of  the  system  by  Henry  Cowles,  Holiness  of  Christians  in  the 
Present  Life  (1840),  pp.  9  ff .  The  system,  he  says,  "disclaims  all 
obligation  to  obeying  the  moral  law,"  substituting  the  law  of  love. 
It  "  supposes  the  Christian  to  receive  Christ  within  him,  In  such  a 
way,  that  henceforth  Christ  only  acts  within  him;  and  whatever 
himself  seems  to  do,  Christ  really  does.  Some  even  suppose  their 
own  individual  being  to  be  absorbed  or  merged  into  Christ,  so  that 
themselves  as  distinct  persons,  have  ceased  to  exist,  and  all  that 
was  themselves  is  now  Christ."  It  "  either  avowedly  or  virtually 
annihilates  personal  agency  and  responsibility."  "As  a  consequence, 
mental  impressions  supposed  to  be  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  are 
deemed  perfect  truth  and  law,  paramount  even  to  the  Bible  itself." 
"These  principles  lead  more  or  less  extensively,  as  the  case  may 
be,  to  the  rejection  of  all  Gospel  ordinances,  the  disuse  of  prayer, 
and  to  all  manner  of  licentiousness."  Compare  also  the  vivid 
description  of  the  Antinomian  Perfectionists  in  Charles  Fitch, 
Views  of  Sanctification  (1839),  pp.  19  ff. 
55  W.  L.  Stone,  Matthias  and  His  Impostures,  etc.   (1835),  p.  316. 

68  The  Berean,  p.  460. 

67  Cf.  §68  of  The  Berean,  on  "  The  Doctrine  of  Disunity,"  in  which 
he  says  (in  American  Socialisms,  p.  623)  he  was  aiming  at  "a  the- 
ory that  prevailed  among  Perfectionists,  similar  to  Warren's  Indi- 
vidual Sovereignty."  Among  the  most  influential  of  the  advocates 
of  the  theory  were  James  Boyle  and  Theophilus  R.  Gates,  both  of 
whom  were  closely  associated  with  Noyes  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
his  development. 

58  American  Communities   (Revised  edition,  1902),  p.  159. 

69  Spiritual  Wives,  vol.  ii.  p.  9;  cf.  p.  48.  On  Hiram  Sheldon  and 
his  work,  compare  H.  Eastman,  Noyesism  Unveiled  (1849),  p.  31, 
note. 

60  Joseph  I.  Foot  (Discourses  on  Modern  Antinomianism,  com- 
monly called  Perfectionism  [1834],  p.  iv),  says:  "This  class  of 
religionists  is  found  in  small  numbers  in  various  places  in  this 
state.  Perhaps  one  of  the  churches  in  Albany,  and  those  in  Ro- 
chester, have  been  more  annoyed  by  them  than  any  others."  The 
occasion  of  his  writing  was  the  annoyance  suffered  from  a  sma^l 
band  of  them  in  his  own  parish  at  Salina,  Onondaga  County.  Cf. 
the  general  statement  of  C.  G.  Finney  (Memoirs  [1876],  p.  341): 
"About  this  time,  the  question  of  Christian  Perfection,  in  the  anti- 
nomian sense  of  the  term,  came  to  be  agitated  a  good  deal  at  New 
Haven,  at  Albany,  and  somewhat  at  New  York  City." 

61  Spiritual  Wives,  p.  35.  Joseph  I.  Foot,  as  cited,  p.  51,  note: 
"  Females  sometimes  accompany  these  itinerant  errorists,  and  in 
other  cases  go  alone  '  to  preach  the  Gospel,'  as  they  call  their 
delusions.   A  woman  recently  sowed  the  seed  of  this  heresy  in  Brim- 


72  Bibliotheca  Sacra 

field   (Mass.),  where  they  have  sprung  up  as  in  other  places,  and 
are  likely  to  produce  bitter  fruit." 

62  Mrs.  Boardman  (Life  and  Labors  of  the  Rev.  W.  E.  Boardman 
[1887],  chap,  iii.)  tells  of  living  at  Potosi,  Wisconsin,  in  close  in- 
timacy with  a  number  of  persons  who  had  been  excluded  from 
E.  N.  Kirk's  church  in  Albany  on  account  of  their  Perfectionism. 

63  H.  Eastman,  as  cited,  where  "  a  gentleman  residing  in  central 
New  York "  is  quoted  as  explaining  that  "  the  lumen  of  Eastern 
New  York  Perfectionism  is  referred  to  John  B.  Foot,  a  theological 
student  in  Kirk's  school  at  Albany.  Modest  and  timid  to  excess, 
the  revival  soon  compelled  him  with  its  deep-toned  enthusiasm. 
Around  him  gathered  the  most  devoted  of  his  class.  Mr.  Kirk 
tried  to  quell  the  storm  but  failed.  The  refractory  students  be- 
came the  preachers  of  the  new  faith.  To  their  labors  most  of  the 
Perfectionism  in  Massachusetts  and  westward  owes  its  existence." 
An  account  is  given  of  Kirk's  theological  school  in  D.  O.  Mears, 
Life  of  Edward  Norris  Kirk,  D.D.  (1877),  pp.  85  f.  Against  some 
of  the  names  of  the  students  in  Kirk's  private  catalogue,  we  are 
told,  is  written,  "  Became  a  fanatic."  John  Brownson  Foot,  after 
an  exemplary  youth,  was  graduated  at  Williams  College  in  1831, 
and  shortly  afterwards,  says  Calvin  Durfee  (Williams  Biograph- 
ical Annals  [1871],  p.  460),  was  licensed  to  preach  the  Gospel;  but 
Durfee  adds,  apparently  endeavoring  to  excuse  the  inexcusable, 
"  Ere  long  he  entered  on  an  eccentric  and  wild  career,  which,  in  a 
man  of  his  former  habitual  uprightness  and  sober  good-sense,  could 
be  accounted  for  only  on  the  supposition  that  reason  was  de- 
throned." A  horrible  account  is  given  by  Dixon  (Spiritual  Wives, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  75  ff.) — actually  from  the  hand  of  Noyes  —  of  a  pe- 
culiarly obnoxious  instance  of  the  practice  of  "  spiritual  wives,"  in 
which  Foot  was  implicated  —  though  not  as  a  principal.  He  is 
here  represented  to  have  become  "  a  convert  to  Hiram  Sheldon's 
doctrine  of  salvation  from  sin,  and  to  the  social  theory  which  seems 
to  have  been  connected  in  every. man's  mind  with  that  doctrine  of 
the  final  establishment  of  heaven  and  earth  "  —  phraseology  which 
is  very  distinctly  that  of  Noyes.  At  a  little  later  date  (1847)  we 
find  Foot  and  Noyes  sharing  the  leadership  in  certain  Conventions 
of  the  "  Western  division  of  Perfectionists,"  at  the  head  of  which 
we  are  told  that  Foot  had  "  for  a  considerable  period  "  stood  (East- 
man as  cited,  pp.  140,  143). 

"Mrs.  Boardman,  as  cited  in  Note  62. 


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APPRECIATION 

of 

The  Work  of  Wiener 

and  Dahse 

Dr.  E.  S.  Cook,  who  was  a  prominent 
member  on  the  staff  of  the  "  Encyclo- 
paedia Bibliea,"  makes  the  following 
concessions.  Commenting  on  Mr.  H.  M. 
Wiener's  essays  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra, 
he  writes:  — 

"  What  is  really  emerging  from  cur- 
rent tendencies  in  Old  Testament  criti- 
cism is  the  fact  that  the  facile  theories 
of  the  history  of  the  Israelite  religion 
are  untenable.  Current  events  have 
shaken  our  dogmas  of  religious  evolu- 
tion in  general.  The  simple  progression 
from  desert  nomadism  to  priestly  legal- 
ism is  a  logical  contradiction  for  which 
it  is  difficult  to  find  any  parallel  else- 
where. ...  At  all  events  there  is  an 
impasse  in  Biblical  criticism "  (Journal 
of  Theological  Studies,  July,  1920,  pp. 
377-378). 

Erratum.  Professor  Rothstein's  ap- 
preciation of  the  work  of  Wiener  and 
Dahse  quoted  on  the  fourth-cover  page 
of  the  October  number  should  have  been 
credited  to  a  criticism,  in  the  Deutsche 
Literaturzeitung,  Oct,  1915,  of  "The 
Pentateuchal  Text." 


